ARLYLEANDTHEWAR 



MARSHALL- KELLY 




GopyiightN"_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



CARLYLE AND THE WAR 



Carlyle and the War 



BY 



MARSHALL KELLY 




NEW YORK 

JEAN WICK, Publisher 
1915 



.\^ 



^V-' 



Copyright, 1915, by 
MARSHALL KELLY 



FEB 10 1916 

©b!.A418957 



PREFACE 

If, as was my wish and endeavour, this book had been pub- 
lished in England, I should have written no Preface to it. 
Now, however, in putting it before the American public, 
some word of preface does seem desirable. 

For the title, 'Carlyle and the War,' this, to thoughtful 
readers, should at once be sufficiently significant. But 
these readers will know too well how lamentably ignorant 
of Carlyle the general public is; and they must have con- 
stantly reflected how impossible it would have been for 
the delirious defamation of the German, which now stuns 
every ear, to have again found credence had his words 
been hearkened to. Carlyle was the greatest man of the 
nineteenth century. And he knew Germany, German char- 
acter, and German history, as no other Briton has ever 
done; in his 'History of Frederick the Great,' especially, 
rendered such True Report thereof, as it is indeed some- 
thing more than lamentable should be so little known or 
remembered, as it is altogether disgraceful to the American, 
as well as to the Briton, who attempts to judge of these 
matters, that he is not familiar with. For each present 
Event is but a part of the Past and of the Future; and 
this War is no accidental eddy, but very evidently an 
issue of the great world-currents. 

Nor is it only, or even mainly, in regard to Germany 
that Carlyle 's life and teaching is of such importance 
here. Quite as much in the Democracy issue: Wherein 
he so nobly upheld what is verily priceless in Democracy, 
even as he banned what is vicious. 



vi PREFACE 

But, above all that, Carlyle was one of those Seers who 
are for all time and all men; who taught and exemplified 
the imperishable moral grandeurs of man's soul and his 
eternal duties. He lived in what, in the sorrow of his hearty 
he deliberately named the Latter Days of England, her 
'penultimate ages, or times immediately before the last'; 
wherein he warned her that, if she did not repent and turn 
from the course she was on, nothing save destruction could 
lie before her. England has not repented, nor turned 
from the course she was on. Neither merely continued 
on it; but, in the height of a blind and prideful enmity, 
has turned to wreck herself upon the Nation he revealed 
the natural peer of whatsoever was noblest and best in 
herself. And, in the fateful days we live in, Carlyle 's 
words come home again to us as those of a man once more 
sent of heaven to a People wedded to delusion, with the 
offer of redemption to them: Whose words must remain 
for the world, though the People, as usual, would not hear. 

I, who here speak to you, am a Briton, long confessedly 
a follower of Carlyle 's. And, in looking at the Present 
with my own eyes, giving such account of it as able, I 
have referred to him where the Past is concerned ; largely, 
also, appealed for Justice in his name, and called on the 
alone real aristoi of Britain to rouse themselves, if they 
would not see their country consummate iniquity beyond 
all hope. 

The non-British reader will do well to remember that 
I wrote primarily to Britons and for Britain; that, had 
it been otherwise, the manner of my address would have 
been different. Since a man may speak to his fellow coun- 
trymen as he would not of them, much less at them. I 
am sensible, too, that there is some change in this respect 
toward the latter part of the book. Namely, that when 



PREFACE yii 

it became apparent to me that British popular obsession 
had reached such a depth, it was only in America I could 
hope for a hearing. I gradually, without thinking of it, 
wrote more to the American, less to the Briton. 

For the Briton, I repeat, I have no explanation to 
offer: He may take the book as it stands, and make of 
it what he can. In other words: He, if not possessed 
with the mob 's fanaticism, will need no explanation ; whilst, 
if so possessed, he will listen to none. 

The American is supposedly neutral. Now, in the cur- 
rent dialect, this Neutral covers with a gentle forgiveness 
whatsoever damns the German, yet finds whatsoever speaks 
well of him, condemns the British, too partisan for Yankees' 
equity to relish: I am afraid I cannot help this sort of 
American either; have little respect for the 'dispassion- 
ate' pleadings pleasing to one who so levels at the truth. 

There are Americans of another sort. And I can well 
believe that some of these may wish that I had written 
in a different tone. It is just admitted that, if American, 
I had done so. No word here was written in any wish 
to stir up American feeling against England: I have 
never, either, reckoned that there was any peril in that 
direction. America's danger has been, and is, to plunge 
into a war she has no call to take part in from Anti- German 
bias. I have written simply to try to make the truth more 
evident; and, if this involve the declaring of guilt, and 
terrible guilt, in the British, I cannot help it, Gentlemen. 

Among the German-Americans, and German sympa- 
thisers in America, there is one point of view very preva- 
lent just now, which is perhaps natural and pardonable, 
yet surely very erroneous. I mean that of looking upon 
Sir Edward Grey as chief author of the war, and a sort 



viii PREFACE 

of surpassing lago, who, at every step, purposefully plotted 
for war, and had the diabolical satisfaction of seeing all 
the puppets dance according to his prearranged programme. 
A simple enough seeming ease can thus be made out ; but, 
truly, one only suitable for the nurseries. We have to 
do with actual flesh and blood; and these arch-fiends, 
with their super-human foreknowledges and cunning which 
makes mere mortal shudder, are creatures of the fancy. 
Neither is it by any means a simple case, but a highly com- 
plex! To be studied and meditated with earnestness and 
in a wide humanity, would we really see anything of it 
at all. 

Briton, Frank and Russ, with all the world to help, and 
damn the German cur, is the Mob-cry of the hour. But 
Briton with German had been a better bond for peace in 
Europe; and, if America is ever to be a Mediator, she 
will need to cease tier swelling of that Mob-cry. Will need 
to search a little for the Almighty's justice: Whose judg- 
ments are, for certain, abroad in the world to-day as of 
yore. 

Marshall Kelly. 

August, 1915. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEB 

Peoem ....••• 

I. Concert of Europe 

II. Ostensible Causes 

III. Balance op Power . . . 

IV. Systems of Alliances .... 

V. The Combination Against Germany 

VI. Real Causes 

Preliminary . .... 

1. Trial of Strength .... 
la. Militarism 

2. Democracy versus Autocracy . 

2a. German Kaiser: British King 

2b. The Liberal Ministry 

2c. Carlyle 

3. Mendacity versus Veracity . 
3a. Common Guilt of People 
3b. Dubieties and Certainties 

VII. Issues 

Conclusion 

Summaries 



1- 10 

11- 22 

23- 56 

57- 73 

75- 95 

97-121 

123-299 

125-131 

131-159 

159-170 

171-183 

183-224 

224-254 

254^262 

262-283 

283-295 

295-299 

301-327 

327 

329 



PROEM 



CARLYLE AND THE WAR 



PROEM 

It is loudly asseverated that the British Empire is of one 
mind in regard to this war against Germany; and, by the 
arithmetical count of heads, it probably is so to an over- 
whelming extent, as it has long been in other matters. 
But one wonders how many, or how few, there may be 
who reflect, with a depth of stable conviction altogether 
diverse from the popular unanimities, that the British are 
in this war, as in so very much else, acting in an express 
defiance of the teaching of the validest Sage and Hero-soul 
that has lately lived among them. Yea, in a witting de- 
fiance of the clearest revelation of indubitable facts, made 
by the Best of themselves in their midst, vitally connected 
with this very matter; which it preeminently behoved the 
British to have learnt and laid to heart, as basis and guide 
for their whole relation to Germany, Few, indeed, I fear, 
are those who know thus, if compared to the millions ne- 
glectful; yet possibly more numerous than those denying 
millions dream of, and certainly, were it unit against the 
rest of the race, of more weight in the final count. These, 
in their musings on the war, its Causes and its Issues, will 
have their rock-based Certainties; also their profound 
Dubieties; their confidence in Eternal's justice, and joy 
in iniquity's overthrow; their submission to His decree, 
however terrible the desolation, however complete and hide- 

1 



2 PROEM 

ous-seeming the triumpli of 111. Silent for tlie most part, 
and waiting the Event unforeseeable. For the nation does 
not ask their counsel; spurns it if offered; and follows, 
as most chosen of the Lord, the Demagogues which at 
each moment best mouth its own impious will. Moreover, so 
long as anything like a flaming success shall crown its ef- 
fort, no contrary word will be listened to. Should adver- 
sity befall, it might prove otherwise; and in either, or 
in any, case we have and shall have our thoughts and our 
duties both during and after : Thoughts and duties which 
might perhaps gain a little in clearness if earnestly im- 
parted, deliberated of. 

To start with a small Certainty, surely shareable by 
many complexions : This attempt, of the Newspapers and 
Parliamentary Leaders, which has been and is all too suc- 
cessful, to work the whole nation up into a state of foam- 
lipped furor against the Germans, cannot conduce to wis- 
dom in the council or valour in the field. This is not 
just indignation, and no profit can lie in it for Man. 
Neither strength to us, nor danger to the German, — save 
as the human may be sore bested by numberless pack. 

Brutal barbarian and modern Hun, ruthless in savage 
atrocity ; Military Autocracy, domineering of temper, bent 
on self-aggrandisement, destructive of freedom and seeking 
the tyrannous; most to be dreaded embodiment of Satanic 
power, whose threatened encroachments all the nations of 
the earth should gather together to stem, fairest of the 
justice-loving unite with darkest minister to cut down and 
destroy: — Surely there are men in number, true British, 
indeed, who have an assurance, not to be shaken by any 
amount of rabid clamour, that such current imagination 
of the German bears no manner of resemblance to the 
German of fact; men who could fight to some purpose 
in a cause that was just, unmoved by campaigns of per- 



PROEM 3 

suasion far removed from all spirit of justice; who, de- 
manded to draw in this quarrel, thrust the blade further 
home in its sheath, with some uttered or mute Videat 
AlUssimum, shamed of their country's deeds, appealing to 
their captain's Captain. Yea, mindful of, and worthily 
obeying, their earthly captain also, he, the greatest, noblest, 
justest of all modern men, Carlyle: Who bore witness 
of mightily different tenor to the German, his history, mili- 
tary and other organisation, and whose witness they know 
to have been true. Wide and stable testimony by constant 
brother man, lucent with true heaven's inspiration; some- 
what more sufficing than the Devil's Head in phosphorus 
— drawn, alas, upon no dungeon's walls,^ but gleaming 
hideous in souls mendacious walking freely in the daylight, 
profane in insolent denial of the Seer whom the Almighty 
sent to them. To us at least ; not to them, unless penitent ; 
and may we be worthy to say to us. 

His testimony, testimony to Briton and German alike, 
was true: That we know. Has it any way ceased to be 
presently applicable? Demagogues and mob that plunged 
into this war of their diligent seeking, lips babbling of 
endeavours for peace, build on no such hypothesis ; for they 
have denied him always throughout, and root still in belief 
of the lies he left naked: Their new false imagination 
is the outcome and successor of the old false. But we, we 
know that much has changed since he declared the truth 
of the Past and his own time; that the Present, sure de- 
scendant and inheritor, is not the same; and, whilst ever 
endeavouring to the better understand Carlyle 's spirit, far 
be it from us to assume that we possess it, or could tell 

* Carlyle likened Voltaire 's Life of Frederick the Great to a picture 
of some flaming Devil's Head done in phosphorus on the walls of a 
dungeon, by an artist whom you had locked up there over night, — 
not without reason. 



4 PROEM 

what he would have thought and done in this new time 
and circumstance. Our part to look, with such eyes as 
we have, and try to learn what the justice is, or may be; 
in reverent loyalty to, instead of insolent rejection of his 
so much more cosmic wisdom, — ^which also never supposed 
it could fathom all, but, resolute in insight given, rested 
in submissive faith. Thus, though, for other Certainties, 
we may know completely both that no British nation which 
had hearkened to Carlyle's word could by any possibility 
have got into this war, and that all the nation 's articulated 
pleas of justification for having got into the war are 
charged with a spirit very perverse, yet, among the great 
Dubieties, we must own that it nowise therefore necessarily 
follows that Britain's action is devoid of the least just 
basis, cannot have mutely in it any instinctive bias which 
is in accord with the deeper verities. Carlyle himself re- 
peatedly defined the French Revolution, mutinous, anar- 
chies sequent, raging at King, as a search, most uncon- 
scious, for true king. If that blind grope, cleaving to its 
very conscious Bedlam Faith, do meet the Sane and hurl 
itself unitedly, in league too with its own chiefly anathe- 
matised worst representative of the ancient exploded, upon 
such Finder more victoriously progressing toward solu- 
tion of the problem it still welters in, — ^Why, if so, the at- 
tempt is a damned one; if successful, will prolong the 
rotheap 's slow moulder ; if unsuccessful, precipitate the at- 
tempting nation's own collapse, unless it can desist in 
time, learn, through defeat manfully accepted, where to 
turn for its own salvation also. If so! There is Dubiety. 
For the victorious Solver, or the veracious progenitor living 
toward his realisation on earth, rooted indeed in the true 
of the Past, must be of the Newborn, broad-based in 
progressive humanity and ruling in very wide grasp; ab- 
horring all closure, and never imagining that the swor(J 



PROEM 5 

can keep peace, bring beneficent victory, unless wielded 
in valiance long suffering as severe. One knows not surely 
how much, or even whether, such element is really in the 
quarrel, though in negative sort its presence there he vo- 
ciferously asserted. But we must leave this till later, 
here only forecasting of drift. 

Empire of one mind, they say; and one among you evi- 
dently does not rejoice altogether! Some of the Colonies, 
too, have not supported quite gratis, if they have been 
accorded a desirable safety to thieve so. Yet the solidarity 
of the Empire, taken alone, is a fact of much significance ; 
more grateful, it may be, in many respects, to the unre- 
joicing unit than the outraged reader would be willing to 
credit. You can, then, still stand shoulder to shoulder 
unitedly, sinking all minor differences for the major, and 
front the world a Nation: It was not seriously debatable, 
at least for the start and in a cause popular successful, 
though clamour of civil war imminent, only cut short by 
the outbreak of foreign, may to some Austrian heads have 
seemed an item that helped to render the moment oppor- 
tune. In the name of humanity, let us hope that that con- 
sideration had no weight with Liberal Ministry hoping 
fresh lease of power by enterprise abroad? In wanton- 
ness, it were to me wholly incredible it had any; in fore- 
gone persuasion the war must come sooner or later, I 
have no clear confidence the home crisis was without in- 
fluence in decision, then let it come now. When a nation 
cannot stand united against outer world, all is over with 
it; and even the capacity to do this did hang uncertain 
through the middle of last century. But that doubt has 
passed for a while, though sure to return if the boasted 
union be not in true faith for the just. England is no Po- 
land, whose grandees can be carried in ambitious neigh- 



6 PROEM 

bour's pockets; Faction has not reached that height among 
us; it cares for nothing else; and the once perilous indif- 
ference of mother to her colonies has given place to a warm 
reciprocity. Name the common bond of Empire nothing 
save a mutual recognition of profit by the union, you know 
the hypothesis untenable: For no faithless egotism is 
ever competent to steadily live as one of a whole, to per- 
ceive with the least constancy that its profit does lie in 
such union. And the loyal cooperation of all ranks here 
at home, staunch support of distant sections of the race, is 
a thing that certifies the existence of a priceless fund of 
virtue; which man would fain see directed on blest enter- 
prise, then founded for hundredfold increase, not squan- 
dered in impious to its own wreck also. It cannot cer- 
tify the war just, nor even honestly believed so. Neither 
can it bring victory in spite of Heaven, if possibly in its 
greater condemnation. 

It is true that United Action is solely permanently pos- 
sible in a seeing faith and for the just; that final ruin 
to a nation, once established in great possession, scarcely 
ever comes till it have lost the power to front the world 
a unity, fallen wholly internecine. Why, then, should Mr. 
Churchill speak as if defeat in this war must disrupt the 
Empire, sweep England into the past? It does not argue 
much of a manful conviction of justice in entering it, of 
faith in the quality of the unanimous British response he 
glories in, would persuade the Yankee to second, as him- 
self next on the world-devourer 's list. "We, too, may be 
aware of enormous perils ; yet, if this danger do exist, know 
for certain that it cannot have come by the war, but must 
have been long already extant; self -gendered, and waiting 
only for some crisis to be precipitated. Pugnacious 
Winston's trepidations, fears of social institutions, so 
darling to him, getting pulverized by mailed fist, do not 



PROEM 7 

augur well of his faith in their being inspired by the spirit 
which endures forever, conquering and to conquer. Per- 
haps a gentle modesty, natural to the godly? Such as 
shrinks from asserting that deity inhabits the poor house 
its hands have laboured to build. And, should the Ger- 
mans prove victorious, would bow mute before the con- 
firmation by Heaven of all that he had chiefly hated? 
Though we have not observed him much remarkable for 
sentiments of that description. Surely one could believe 
it very possible for a soundly based Solidarity to come 
through in a gained strength, whatever the issue. If de- 
feated in what seemed just, to accept the worsting with- 
out too deep an abashment. If overthrown in unjust, dire 
indeed must be that depth of rottenness which cannot 
confess penitent, anew make honourable front, no citadel 
left. Yea, this applies to all; and, for God's sake, clear 
yourself of this inflated, most vulgar. Proclamation of Mag- 
nitude, which meets you on every side. Sir Edward Grey, 
Mr. Asquith, all the vocal tribes, announcing with wide 
throat : The hugest thing that ever yet befell. Thucydides 
commences his history by similar insistence the war he 
is going to chronicle was the greatest ever known, foreseen 
so by himself; meaning thereby mere size and number, 
just as these moderns do. What wretched pettiness and 
suicidal nothing his great war was we know: Forfend 
the omen! Let us leave all that. It does not emanate 
from gravity, nor indicate staid noble consciousness of 
weighty fates in balance. Nations, and the World, have 
stood worse shocks ere now; time was, too, when it was 
thought that Man could stand unmoved should the moun- 
tains melt and stars tumble from their courses. 

It is not to be forgotten either that a People may pon- 
derate irresistibly in a right direction when they do not 
see at all, when their spoken reasons are beyond comment. 



8 PROEM 

Carlyle found this to be eminently true of both Briton 
and German. It is, in fact, as he taught, partly true of all 
veridical men whatsoever; no utterable intelligence worth' 
much that does not rest on dumb bias, on a totality of in- 
stinct whereof the clearest intuition can only render very 
fractional account. Partly true because veracity, unable 
to say why, prefers silence to babblement. But, where 
that silence is, the fools will babble with so much the 
less hinderance; and thus it often haps that, with so 
composite an entity as a nation, the act is really done by 
those who never gave a reason; merely apparently 
prompted by the baseless and iniquitous pleas put forward 
as its explanation, justification, condemnation. It may 
even be safely affirmed usually done so, though never hap- 
pily when so. But united action can temporarily be from 
all manner of causes ; very terrible deeds done in popular 
delusions more wide embracing, more spontaneous in their 
Solidarity, than have ever been exampled by concordance 
in a god-commanded duty. Again, though unions in- 
formed by mere egoism are transient enough, there are 
others, informed by a false faith, maintained in blind 
obstinacy, which are capable of long continuance, which 
grow ever the madder, the more fiercely determined in 
insistence, the more wrongful the faith, the greater defeat 
they meet. This, too, is a thing the world has witnessed 
many times ; and nothing the English have ever exhibited, 
or, one hopes, ever will exhibit in that bad sort, has equalled 
the toughness of the Jews when their destruction came. 
Whole towns committing suicide rather than yield, so that 
even their enemies could take no pleasure in it. They 
too swore (and have continued to swear) that their faith 
was true, themselves the People ; but it availed them noth- 
ing. Marry, they met an earthly power more powerful 
than themselves. Do you suppose that it would have 



PROEM 9 

availed them had they been huge Empire, so preponderate 
in number, strength, and vast resources that they could 
have crushed all opposite? They could only have filled 
the cup of their iniquity the fuller. 

But, although the case of an already great nation, still 
sound within itself and progressing in manhood, over- 
thrown by hostile league may never have been seen yet, 
it is obviously just as possible as the similar destruction 
of an individual, if unreckonably rarer. 

Concerning the question of war or peace in Europe, 
apart from this or that nation : Great hopes were enter- 
tained of the effects of more general culture, more rapid 
means of transit, in bringing about a closer intercourse, 
better mutual understanding, and the century of peace, 
so called, may have seemed to strengthen promise. Goethe 
hoped so after the last general war, and Carlyle shared 
in the hope in his earlier years, not in his later. With the 
why of that latter fact before us, the hope is not one that 
I, personally, have ever shared at all. I have no belief 
that wars will ever cease ; absolutely none that culture and 
ease of interchange can in themselves do anything con- 
siderable to so much as hinder them. For long one could 
believe them the more likely the nobler the forces at work, 
and Peace Movements would never deign to speak of at 
all; unctuous futilities not issuing from the sterling of 
any race or persuasion. Universal reawakening of a suf- 
ficient leaven in every rank of every nation to the infinite 
nature of duty; profound gravity in each unit, earnest 
for his soul's salvation, and irradiating the whole mun- 
dane with ethereal light; hearts set on eternal being, and 
chiefs of the State elect for highest manhood: — this, and' 
nothing short of this, could ever put an end to Wars, and 
only then if so established dominant every vicious con- 



10 PROEM 

trariant could see the hopelessness of combat without trial. 
Among Peoples unleavened by intelligence of the high- 
est; still mumming with extinct religions long after even 
the Jesuit profession has fallen flaccid; pledged univer- 
sally, in a spontaneous enthusiasm, to political faiths that 
are baseless, sordid absurd even where pure, doubly ac- 
cursed where mendaciously compounded with the main- 
tenance of a nominal sovereignty in ancient relics, and 
malignantly hostile at the least hint of a sovereignty actual ; 
genuine only in the terrene; and whose best zeal, devoted 
to sociology projects, is unsound, sincere for easement 
alone ; neither privately aspiring to the infinite nor in 
public resolute for the inexorably just: — Among such, the 
outbreak of general war is not surprising. For the un- 
scrupulous greeds remain, and are not controllable by a 
lying spirit; the Bedlam Faiths themselves very ready to 
plunge headlong. Fear of catastrophe, also^ could never 
avert it: The noble, recognizing dread possibilities, may 
take wise measures shall prevent, or mitigate them: but 
the devices of ignoble men, if they do stave for the instant, 
can only worsen the ultimate. Devil's diplomacy, delib- 
erately plotting for war, has not, I believe, been the pre- 
vailing phenomenon in recent years, rather strenuous en- 
deavours to preserve Peace by whatever arrangement the 
Big Bullies could contrive to agree upon, the so trouble- 
some Small be compelled to accept : which is the first thing 
we have to look at. 



CHAPTER I CONCERT OF EUROPE 



CONCERT OF EUROPE 

It may be as well to note here that the subject matters 
of the first four chapters of this book, which are to be 
labelled respectively Concert of Europe, Ostensible 
Causes, Balance of Power, and System of Alliances, are 
so intimately connected that the four are almost as one. 

It is very lamentable and terribly significant how wide- 
spread and genuine a persuasion has got abroad, even 
among the good people, that this Concert of the Powers 
was a sort of a sacred thing. Colours of the vulpine do 
often succeed in deceiving as they wittingly propose ; and 
a righteous indignation at the vulpine, when their true 
motives are disclosed, may be justified. But the concur- 
rent belauding as holy a base policy whereof the motives 
have been correctly announced augurs a pravity which, 
if it come to know truth, can have no title to be indignant, 
must rather confess its own guilt. Yet even here, however 
stern a man's recognition of the sin, he knows the too 
commonly irresistible influence of a general consensus in 
perverting those of a bias truly virtuous. Some sixteen 
years, or so, ago, one time when reports of Turkish atroc- 
ities in Armenia were causing such emotion in England 
that many were crying for armed intervention, I remember 
being urged to read a speech of Lord Rosebery's. A 
judicious wet-cloth, of course, but equally of course, since 
by British Liberal Statesman of this epoch, not a speech 
astutely contrived to simply dissuade from enterprise in- 

13 



14 CONCERT OF EUROPE 

convenient for Ministry occupied in concerns privately 
more profitable to its members; on the contrary, tbe sin- 
cere utterance of a man self-sympathizing with the emo- 
tion, wishful for the Turks' correction, yet arguing: 
Husht! Dread sequel if we stir alone; in the Concert 
solely is there safety and salvation. And, with such unc- 
tion did he perorate, the Public, in awakened sense, holily 
restrained its rage for its salvation's sake, — and possibly 
the Turk's, not quite the Armenian's. I refused at the 
moment to look at the thing, pained with emotions of an- 
other kind; so far as the urger knew, never looked at it; 
yet did, as you see, afterwards read, in resolute suppres- 
sion, and for more exact knowledge of its guessed tenor. 
' You should read that, my son ; that is a speech everybody 
ought to read. ' About the same time the same woman said 
to me, upon laying down a book entitled Fire and Sword 
in the Soudan, 'I suppose he could not help himself, but 
I cannot feel any respect or sympathy for that man,' the 
author, one Slaten, to wit. Very gently said, but she 
couldn't; yet thought the Rosebery address delivered in 
right spirit for the pulpit. How many have met the like ! 
How many have thought the like ! Too many that have in- 
nocently drunk in a belief this Concert was a sacred thing. 
Yet the case of that Turkish instance was, if possible, 
even grosser than the subsequent Balkan ones. A dark, 
brutal, wretch, whatever ill he do, let no man hinder, lest 
his coveted den breed contention. The devil to be kept 
afoot in some measure ; prudently maintained in possession 
of Eden, because the godly might fall out with one an- 
other, were so lovely a spot left free to their entry. If 
a murderous thief have money in his pocket, or the bank, 
let every constable be wary; never dare to run him in, 
unless the Judges are agreed on how to share the spoil. 
In Decorum's name, what is a little outrage in the streets 



CONCERT OF EUROPE 15 

compared to quarrel on the Bench? The results of that 
are too frightful to contemplate. Hasty zeal would defeat 
its own end, destroy the very means of bringing offender 
to judgment; for without a judicious unanimity no lawful 
verdict were obtainable. Lawful verdicts are frequently 
unobtainable, sometimes too obtainable; and justice never 
reached so, yet capable of being done and left for verdict. 
Methinks, if man might seriously question Have I real 
errand to correct this particular and so distant abuse? 
the question shall I wait on Concert with the covetous 
to do it? would be out of his debate. And yet I honour 
policy, and know the multiple involute of practical fact. 
There, however, it is clear, had the dubitating (and dubi- 
ous) Knight Errant stood wholly out, the covetous neigh- 
bours, with or without some brush of comparatively trifling 
battle, would long since have contrived to share in some 
tolerable manner; the Balkans in whole have settled them- 
selves the better without the meddling of such a disin- 
terested Umpire. 

Truly, Prince von Kaunitz Reitberg's text, that Great 
Courts should understand one another, then the Small 
would be less troublesome, has found fat mother to breed 
in, and grown enormously since his day; ever the more 
pronounced virtuously assured of morality, up to the very 
moment of catastrophe from the start inevitable for it. 
For it? Perhaps not. The text may be meet enough 
for unscrupulous voracious fellow; have a real truthful- 
ness to nature there, be well allowed by heaven, and run 
on to happy fulfilment so far. Voracity may be perfectly 
veracious ; and I never blame a shark for swallowing small 
fry with his utmost gusto. The sight of half a dozen 
sharks gracefully manoeuvring in Concert, for the more 
dexterous satisfaction of several appetites, may also have 
its own seemliness, the gastric desires of highest mortal 



16 CONCERT OF EUROPE 

confess a certain sympathy. But for creatures that have 
once guessed themselves made in their Maker's image, to 
whom a sense of the infinite of right and wrong has an- 
nounced that the gaining of the whole world could not 
profit if achieved in treason to that image; — for them to 

take such text as maxim for International Policy ! 

Why I do not know that they ever did it; only the sharks 
having heard tell of them, then find it expedient to de- 
liberately cloak greed in show of holiness^ and imagine 
they can work injustice the more securely by professing 
care of equity; whilst a huge medley of others add their 
votes, variously persuaded that this is the solution: For 
whom catastrophe is inevitable; because they build on no 
truth, neither on appetite or intelligence, but on a lying 
compound, beast man and god alike disown, which nothing 
in nature will support. 

May not a Small nation have just or unjust cause of 
quarrel, reasonable or unreasonable claim or pretension, 
as much as a Great? And what valid title can the Great 
ever have to step in and say: We will decide your dis- 
putes and your claims and in all things you shall do as 
we bid? — damned canaille, jealous of classes superior, 
yelping distracted at each hint or suspicion of one law for 
Rich and another for Poor, sworn all as one man that 
that shall be the rule in law International! Your skins 
are precious to you and your corpora stink. — In the ideal 
possibilities, where the Great loved the truth and sought 
to do justice alone, court of their convening might be 
a godly tribunal, very blessed to see upon earth ; and, what- 
ever security their power gave to its meetings, lent to 
enforce its judgments, most sure it is that the considera- 
tion Great or Little? would weigh pure zero in determin- 
ing right to a seat on the bench? Is this the thing we 
have seen ? No ; nor so much as endeavoured toward. But, 



CONCERT OP EUROPE 17 

in clear sight of utterly diverse fact, the beneficence that 
would attach to this has been pretended for that diverse, — 
which, also, as shall shortly be referred to, could have had 
an honest place. Conclave of the Powerful assembled to 
find how their own mutual jealousies set on edge by de- 
bates 'mong the less, — glowering one at another Take that 
side, if you dare. By God I'll take this you do. — may 
reach compromise without wager of battle, the Small be 
compesced into accepting the awards so arrived at; and 
is one of the most unblessed things very certainly seen 
upon the earth. Yes, this is the thing we have seen thes5 
last thirty years and longer, growing ever the more con- 
fident to its inevitable result. Parties there have been 
in England and elsewhere, very vehement for the justice, 
or what they thought it, yet even these have all subscribed 
to the prime need of Concert; admitted it were better 
that wrong should be done than peace 'tween the Mighty 
put in danger of rupture. Here, at any rate, no shadow 
of a plea can be found that these things were done by 
closeted few, the nations not witting. What the articles 
agreed upon each time were, what dextrous management 
was exercised to reach them, may be an esoteric mystery; 
but what spirit wrought has been broadly visible and 
universally sanctioned. In England most eminently. 
Speeches upon speeches in Parliament and out, without 
respect of party ; all the newspapers in leading articles ; and 
table talk in each private household; — the argument has 
been everywhere the same. I know no instance of Na- 
tional Policy so overwhelmingly endorsed, in full sight of 
its true essence; up to that last speech at the outbreak, 
when Sir Edward Grey, — he would not have had the Peace 
of Europe jeopardised for Servia. Aye, Sir Edward has 
been very consistent in this, and outspoken; long since 
and constantly made it evident as could be 'twas funda- 



18 CONCERT OF EUROPE 

mentally accepted in his Policy the weak must go to the wall 
rather than important persons suffer; merely Quixotic to 
hope otherwise. Of course ! And God forbid he 'd mammer 
scrupulous on such a point. Then, if the case of Belgium 
touch you nearer, step forth pure champion of the Small, 
in righteous zeal. The soul of man is sick at the sodden 
h3T)rocrisy; could find the deeds smell sweeter if done in 
conscious perfidy of the cunning. And the newspapers 
hope that, when the war is over, the Concert may be re- 
established in such firmness any little nation attempting 
to draw free breath shall instantly be throttled impotent: 
They must never be allowed to provoke such disasters 
again. It does not strike you that they have just as good 
a right to bustle in the world as any of the Big? That, 
if the Big fall a-quarrelling in sequel, the crime is their 
own wholly; the true peril in their disposition so to do, 
and unremovable while that remains? 

None worth the name of man but must know beyond 
all question that the sole thing which can give a nation 
right to set up for Judge in another's quarrel is the reso- 
lution to do justice in it. Court convened to arbitrate 
on matters in dispute and primarily devoted to the main- 
tenance of peace among the Arbiters! Could there be a 
thing more impious than this? What amazed execration 
would greet it, if proposed for settlement of the least six- 
penny matter between private litigants! Yet seen Inter- 
national applauded with unction by every man, woman and 
youth; anathema only for any not zealous for such first 
aim, the very need for which invalidates for umpire's 
seat and of necessity turns the Court into one for iniquity's 
sanction. 

Such has too terribly been the fact, and damnable. Yet 
we said that a fact very diverse from the professed Be- 



CONCERT OF EUROPE 19 

neficent Arbitration could have honestly been. It is obvi- 
ous that parties extraneous to an original dispute may 
have interests of every degree of gravity affected by that 
dispute; may confer together for peaceable solution of 
those interests ; if unable to reach it, may choose mediators ; 
and, if still at a deadlock, an umpire. Likewise that par- 
ties extraneous to the original dispute and to the cross 
interests of the secondaries directly affected may have in- 
terests of every degree of gravity affected by division 
among the secondaries, and so ad infinitum, till there be 
in reality no party without interest; and conference for 
peaceable solution the more desirable than ever : In which 
reckoning, it may be worth remarking that the jumping 
of a flea is, in logical sequence, at all times competent to 
set the whole world by the ears ; and wisdom, accordingly, 
somewhat chary how it claims interest affected. Clearly 
enough, the sole valid basis for those Conferences among 
the Great Powers upon Balkan affairs was adjustment of 
their own differences arising through interests affected. 
Every man knows that nothing else ever called them into 
existence; that they were always in reality convened to, 
if possible, prevent quarrel among the Great, not for un- 
biassed decision in equity by them of disputes among the 
Small ; that the pretence of a God 's vice-regency by Major 
in Concert over Minor inclined to division was a pretence 
palpable, which fear alone ever led any to accredit holy. If 
those Conferences had been informed wholly by a spirit 
of greedy cunning, each party diligent for private end, 
they might have had their dog's day; and noble states- 
man kept rigorously out: For that is the law; you are 
not bound to have a finger in every pie; and, if you can- 
not interfere for good, shall not interfere at all, but leave 
the coil to its strugglings and such issue as the high o'er- 
ruling Providence may have for it. 



20 CONCERT OF EUROPE 

If honest (and thereby alone truly valid) the Conference 
must have Justice for its first aim every whit as much as 
Court of Arbitration; and steady refusal to force that 
on the less which nothing save the jealousies of the Great 
demand. Noble Briton, entering such Conference, might 
indeed have prayed heaven to grant him a tactful sa- 
gacity, fine delicacy of manipulation and a solid under- 
standing of the doable, much more and primarily to 
grant him insight into the veritable right and wrong of the 
matters, well knowing that nothing built on miss of this 
could have a chance to stand, that completest Concert 
attained in defiance of this would infallibly prove ex- 
ceedingly disconcerting. He would have utterly abhorred 
the accursed doctrine of the Great's right to interfere 
because Great, and rejected all plans based on such a sup- 
position. Would have known, too, that if the strong hand 
can sometimes parcel States, it is forever impotent to 
create one: That can never be done at external dictation: 
what nation is to be a nation must spring by nature's 
generation, spontaneous in a self-vitality, self -fending, self- 
coherent, being and expanding by its own innate powers. 
Ah, me! This manufacturing of States, autonomous Al- 
banias, what not, Belgium itself for that matter, with their 
frontiers marked, constitutions supplied, and kings (God 
save the mark!) all ready chosen for them, according to 
model pleasing to the grandiose disposers: — it awakens 
thoughts we must not go into; and, any time, I would 
rather leave the blindest rages free to their havoc than 
be one in framing such a mock settlement, fraught with 
far deadlier havoc. 

Yea, noble Briton, unable to do or to obtain justice 
for the Small, had sooner left them to try their own 
strengths than been a party to unjust compulsions. If he 
could not defend them from wrongful aggressions, restric- 



CONCERT OF EUROPE 21 

tions, had sorrowfully stood aside, sooner than lent these 
his sanction. And if he could not have found acceptance 
as mediator between the Big concerning their interests af- 
fected, had similarly left them to fight it out, rather than 
won the crown as Peacemaker by Concert in sacrifice of 
the Lesser 's rights. In all ways, he had stood for Justice, 
wrought for it, and, in such resolution, had seen the justice 
in some measure, as without it never; whether active or 
passive, had found a manful course. But, with Peace th^ 
first aim, all was naturally very different, and honourable 
action never possible. ]\Ian authentically actuated by that 
aim only is in practical deed a powerless entity. Peace! 
Peace ! For God 's sake, Peace ! Lest I get involved, might 
seem contemptible too ; — but not to most, when cried by a 
man very able to fight, and adding — at any cost to those 
little nuisances. Had Sir Edward Grey wished peace for 
peace's sake he had been a nullity and thing helpless to 
further the least agreement ; had he cared particularly for 
justice he might have found himself an alien spirit, still 
more futile to preserve peace this day; but, being heartily 
desirous to prevent war for reasons highly intelligible to 
the rest, he often did patch up matters by expedients of 
the moment, each time worsening the fact and rendering 
ultimate rupture the more certain. My fleets and armies 
are in readiness and I can be truculent enow, but, Gen- 
tlemen, War for such a casus! Come, hit on some reason- 
able apportionment of shares, or all forego. And then 
to some the casus was not so distant, insignificant, as to 
him. And when did a heaven blessed Amity result from 
the like of this? 

Concert of Europe, how these latter decades has this 
been impressed on us ! The just of every nation eyeing in 
silence, with reflections too awful for utterance. Plat- 



22 CONCERT OF EUROPE 

form and pulpit, every shade of opinion, zealous in sacred 
insistence, breath bated in fear : O ye nations called Small ! 
God damn you be quiet, lest the Peace of the Great be 
disturbed. Was there ever a doubt that the Lord of Eter- 
nity, so besought to preserve them from quarrel, would 
answer the Great by letting loose all their furies to ravin 
the worse for every stave till the morrow? 



CHAPTER II: OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

BEING A CRITICISM OF BRITISH WHITE PAPER 

'CASE' 



II 

OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

It is naturally the custom of a nation's Leaders, when 
they announce war on its behalf, to make some sort of 
public statement of the Causes which have determined 
them to take so grave a step ; and the rarer case that the 
true causes are so much as touched upon in such Ostensi- 
ble account of them. Very often the reasons given are 
so totally inadequate (to say naught else) you might marvel 
how any one could put them forth as explanation to be 
credited; why the Peoples so addressed do not instantly 
reply: "We will not hazard life or limb for these hiccups. 
Yet it is not the Peoples ' custom to answer so ; they usually 
accept the reasons given as affording convincing grounds 
for deeds and sacrifices so daringly disproportioned it looks 
an inconceivable credulity; by many of the more philo- 
sophic, regarded perennially as a sort of bedlam posses- 
sion. And no doubt it considerably is so; yet far from 
wholly. Blind stampede and wild unreason of mob, with 
brute love of war, fascination and glamour of exploit, 
ever is in it; yet also greatly more. Even the enthusi- 
astic chorus, reiterating the helpless reasons offered as be- 
yond gainsaying, springs not altogether from simpleness, 
nor readiness to seize excuse, but from an instinct of a vast 
unspoken behind, at least belief there must be this. Yea, 
without conviction, persuasion, or imagination of a true 
infinite at stake, which in the name of manhood commands 
no cost be weighed, the nations never fall a-battliug. Idea 

25 



26 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

of a supreme Duty, whether radiant in clear intelligence, 
turbid confused, or diabolically opposite, is always there; 
and even the cunning who seek to provoke wars for their 
own ends, cannot do so unless this be in some way excited : 
Its presence is a necessity; but, if not intelligent, it can 
be traded on. The very day before war was declared be- 
tween Great Britain and Germany newspapers were de- 
claiming it an unthinkable absurdity, monstrous to suggest ; 
and next day were for it in whole heart and so much of 
soul as they may be supposed to possess. Nor is that 
phenomenon purely one of the weathercock, the essence 
of whose utility is well known to be instant amenability 
to wind, however changeful; a better ingredient in the 
recognition that division, the least word of debate, is peril- 
ous in such circumstances, and a loyal trust in the leaders 
requisite for nations' being. Would that men knew it 
equally in peace, for it is equally true then; and reflect 
on the reaUy awful responsibility they owe for their choice 
of Leaders. Exceedingly foolish, superficial is the notion 
too, that wars are ever caused by trifles; the wiser know 
that the causes are always fully adequate, perfectly pro- 
portioned in fact, could mortal trace them. No mortal can 
trace them, and the proclamation of Ostensible is never 
blameworthy because that way ' inadequate ' ! 

Granting that the Ostensible rarely touch upon the Real, 
they remain noteworthy, were it only as indications of the 
degree of intelligence. They may be subterfuges wittingly 
concocted by wile, or stolidities of inarticulate honesty that 
cannot speak its meaning. Neither is it to be ever for- 
gotten that the highest true could as little really name his 
cause. Cause fully declarable were by the hypothesis, 
shallow and trivial. For, never is it the thing predicated, 
but the enormous sequels which hang by it; and compre- 
hension of these intuitive tacit in faith. Nevertheless the 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES ' 27 

Leaders ought to know to some extent, and who has the 
intuitive perception does; never will the reasons rendered 
by these be contrary to the fact, however limited in ac- 
count of it. Well, the British Ostensible Causes are seli 
forth in a certain White Paper familiar to all men, and 
to which the leaders refer as authorized statement of their 
'Case.' While Sir E. T. Cook has volunteered an eluci- 
dated abbreviation fearlessly entitled Why Britain is at 
War. No man 's breath appears to have been taken away ; 
but, for my part, my audacity would not reach to this. 
How we picked quarrel; or how we closed with the offer 
of it; or how we were forced into it; these are Madams 
(if you know your Kingsley) you may hope to scrape some 
acquaintance with in those pages of My Lords Ambas- 
sadors' despatches; but, as to bosoming with My Lady 
Why, 'tis to be doubted she is not quite so free a wench. 
Happily there is no question that the paper, so far as it 
does go, is authentic; and as we say, interesting chiefly 
as showing degree of veracity. 

For absence of wile will not make a thing honest; de- 
liberate wile can be truer than a systemic mendaciousness, 
which, never expressly uttering falsehood, yet speaks and 
acts habitually from assumptions that are baseless. It is 
not true, for instance, that you sought peace with your 
neighbour if determined on war unless he behaved himself 
according to a prescription drawn up as suitable to your 
needs and conveniences merely; no industrious zeal, most 
passionate pleading to persuade to keep within the bounds 
set, will prevent your being, in that case, most essentially 
the Aggressor. And the knave who made the prescrip- 
tions purposely to provoke war might readily stand in 
closer contact with truth than the wight who expected 
to preserve order by publicly announcing a law of conduct 
for those wholly without his jurisdiction. If we have only 



28, OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

privately registered the rule, too, and, half conscious of 
its presumptuous absurdity, shrink from declaring it till 
the last moment compel, his pleading may easily be the 
more passionate, so that he sit down in tears to cry Pity! 
God witness I did all I could ; but his workings are pitiful, 
can only prove the more disastrous through 'good' inten- 
tions less subtle per fide then simply disjoined from fact's 
realm. 

Of the Austro- Servian matter with which this White 
Paper so confidently referred to as exhibiting Britain's 
' Case, ' commences, we have not much to say : The Justice 
of the dispute was confessedly no cause of Britain 's action ; 
and I, personally, could not hold myself competent to speak 
a word on it: do not know that at all. This, however, I 
do know : namely, that, whether the launching of her Ulti- 
matum by Austria was wise or unwise, its wording prudent 
or imprudent, if the charges made in it were true, then, 
certainly, Austria had valid ground for most drastic ac- 
tion; and nothing save the complete submission of Servia 
could have given her security against a continuance of the 
alleged offences. Alleged offences which if true were wholly 
intolerable, inexcusable, and very great forbearance — godly 
insufferance or fractious compelled — shown in enduring 
them so long. And, if one own to something more than 
scepticism of Austrian political integrity generally, that 
would only make one the more insist on no hindrance if 
she had right in a particular instance. Every fair-minded 
man must have felt that if these charges were true, not 
necessarily in each detail specified but generically in whole 
spirit imputed, then Austria had full title to chastise with 
the armed hand ; and would rather have guarded her from 
interference than been a party to it. Therefore, whoso- 
ever in any way challenged her action could only in probity 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES ' 29 

do so if justified in calling the truth of the charges in 
question. Peculiarly futile was it to run up crying De- 
lay ! for God 's sake, delay, and moderate your tone, when 
it was obvious that if the charges were true the time for 
delay or moderation was long past. If Britain, idle knight- 
errant with no business of her own to look after, wished 
to act on that score she should have acted years before. 
Alas! we all know she had; and added vexation enough, 
not so Quixotically neither for the wound as expediently 
for far other objects. Sancho's stomach made one suf- 
ficing trial of his master's Balsam, wambled at the mere 
snuff ever after: Can you wonder, then, if Austria at 
length grew squeamish of Grey Powder for every ill she 
had a mind to mend? 

When Servia, after shuffle and enquiry round, replied 
to the Ultimatum, our Sir Edward swore he'd never seen 
a nation make a more prostrate salaam to truculent Bashaw. 
To which I fear the answer is : It had much of that char- 
acter, and was a thing of paper; very fit to rank among 
Ostensibles. And, showing more suppleness in perform- 
ing a required kowtow than sincerity in penitence, gave 
properly no assurance of a better loyalty in future deed. 
Nothing in that nominal submission offered hope of stable 
working; and, of course, it is one way evident that, once 
things had reached this pass, nothing short of the almost 
miraculous could. Since, if the charges were untrue the 
party who made them was bent on mischief and would 
take no answer; whilst, if true, the party of whom they 
were true would have needed to do a considerable con- 
version before becoming able to make reply of such radi- 
cally different tenor as could have seemed to Man a ground 
to try anew upon. I think these are facts, and in Sir 
Edward Grey's despatches there is not the slightest recog- 
nition of them: "Which, whether he believed the first al- 



30 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

ternative or the second or the more probal compound of 
both, there assuredly should have been. Intense plead- 
ing there is in those despatches. But it is all prompted 
by absolutely self-interested motives; flows not from care 
of Austria's welfare or of Servia's, but of our own skin's 
solely; owes its fervency to the heart text: Mercy on 
us! Hold your hand, you, bow down t'other, both ac- 
cept shadow for substance, lest your differences breed a 
brawl of wider compass wherein we should not 'scape. 
It was Sir E. Grey's duty to look after our interests; 
and, if he meddled in this foreign matter, the first law 
for that was to see the facts of it and conform to them; 
there could be no hope in resource which flew in the teeth 
of them. But the dread of cataclysm misled, as fear ever 
makes men traitors to themselves and all mankind. More- 
over, it was no case of a normal integrity erring in one 
instance, but of a quite habitual attempt to build on the 
untenable^ to safeguard by methods essentially mendacious, 
howsoever, persuaded of needful expediency or claiming 
regard of common welfare. 

For for Great Britain, on her own initiative, uninvited, 
to write any despatch to Austria on her Servian affair was 
in reality an indefensible proceeding ; and every man knows 
that Britain herself would be the last to suffer the like 
from another. Had any nation presumed to offer us advice 
in any of our numerous disputes with little states or big, 
what sort of answer should we have made ? You all know 
it: A peremptory injunction never to repeat the like in- 
solence under penalty. It is, indeed, a flatly impossible 
position this, that self-fending independent states shall be 
perpetually prevented from managing their own disputes 
without consult of neighbours. A thing justly intolerable 
to the states so checked. And, on the other side, however 
prone the big may be to bully, to enchant the arm of 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES • 31 

power from its natural exercise is sure to prove a cherish- 
ing of license. When done, as here on the plea of You 
mustn't, lest we others get to loggerheads, reduced to the 
extremity of impious absurdity. Doubtless the far-seeing, 
equitable, sagacious Ruler would recognise the existence 
of such mad notions in his neighbours' heads and weigh 
them; but he above all others would know the notions to 
be baseless delusions, vicious in origin, pernicious in act; 
would proceed on his own business none the less, whether 
in wary evasion or open contempt. The more ordinary, 
so beshouted to stop, would, if he deigned to look over his 
shoulder at all, merely rejoin: You will fight with each 
other, say you? That is surely your affair. I wish you 
good luck, and may God salve your wits, for they need 
it more than your wounds will. 

Most clearly, to continually prevent the settlement of 
disputes is to create a danger immeasurably greater than 
any their fiercest let could have brought about; and if 
others get to quarrel in sequel the responsibility thereof 
rests on their own heads. Austria has to answer to God 
for the justice of her war upon Servia; but not therefore 
for the European War. 

According to the White Paper, Germany's Ostensible 
attitude toward this Austro-Servian matter was that Aus- 
tria had the right to manage in it as she herself thought 
fit, and no other a title to interfere : This was, in fact, the 
only right attitude, unless you were constituted Judge of 
the dispute, or had good grounds and duty to challenge 
the justice of Austria's action; and if, as one hopes and 
believes, the Ostensible was so far the Real, there is not 
a word can be said against it. The one straightforward, 
manful course there was for third parties not directly con- 
cerned. 



82 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

Britain, whatever her thought or resolution for subse- 
quent developments, possible, probable, or certain, ought 
thus far to have taken the same; and had she done so, 
there would have been a different tale to tell in the sub- 
sequent developments. Simple refusal to be a Busybody. 
Nor need such passive role, in case liable to grow compli- 
cated, be a whit the less simply this because he who takes 
it is, as he should be, alive to the complexities also, ready 
for action in them, if they do result. Sir E, T. Cook, 
seeking the sinister, full of a preconceived belief of it, 
repeats with exclamation mark, her minister's statement 
that Germany very well knew what she was about in so 
'Backing up Austria'; said 'backing' consisting in what 
the English call a traitorous refusal to unite with them 
in forbidding Austria to manage her own concerns. Has 
it really, then, become a sin to a Briton that a man should 
know what he is doing? It often almost seems so. The 
most dangerous crime, at least, and surest mark of nefari- 
ous proclivity to say one thing and not mean another; 
safety and virtue alone in those transparent mendacities 
— whereby our Faith and Polity are kept secure from 
ravin and inspiration alike. And which, since all men see 
through them, cannot surely be hypocrisies ? For my part, 
I devoutly hope that Germany did know what she was 
doing, though the sequel have proved beyond mortal 's fore- 
cast. Let her have courage; for, if so, the ultimate issue 
may likewise prove beyond mortal's hope. But Germany 
was the only one that took this course ; and took it, we will 
hope, in a courageous simplicity. Quarrel not with the 
word; or do so to your heart's content. Took it, we will 
hope, in faithfulness to the fact; and the more awake to 
and prepared for the probable consequences the greater 
credit to her. Boundless clamour there at once was and 
continues to be that she took it in duplicity ; clamour origi- 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 33 

Dating in presupposition to that effect, and up to the pres- 
ent not, that I know of, supported by a shred of evidence. 
For the notable thing to me in these despatches is that 
those of the German bear the impress of veracity; they 
alone are not condemnable on self-evidence, but cohere to- 
gether consistently throughout as the words of men that, 
in spite of limitations, did essentially mean one thing be- 
fore God and the same thing before men ; which is not true 
of those of any of the others. Of these others so far as 
we may meetly speak: 

The Kussian ground was different; had nothing to do 
with the damned plea of Peace! Lest we quarrel; based 
itself on claim of weighty interests directly affected, in 
short, of being a party to the dispute and not an outsider 
at all. Even without this, and in a total disregard of the 
justice of the dispute, it could have a certain validity: 
Two fall ajar ; a third says Let them fight it out ; a fourth 
No, I '11 join in : All these might find solid foothold in the 
wide realm of nature's truth, intelligent or lustful; but 
he who cries, and in the name of an intelligent humanity 
cries. Stop ! Stop ! you over there, lest I and others, leagues 
distant from you and unconcerned in your debate, should 
fall out with one another. — ^What ground has he to stand 
on? Vacuity. A very meddlesome fellow, you would 
say, and one seeking a currying with a diligence not easily 
matched. But for the Russian; if his intervention was 
primarily directed against Austria only, which of us is 
there can say he had no right to appear on the field and 
try what he could do there? One does not know. More- 
over one allows to the half-barbarous, inarticulate, a sort 
of brute right to try propensities — no curtailment of an- 
other's right to drub him well for trying them and so 
teach the animal becoming manners — such as, to those 



34 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

who have ever known higher law, one could by no means 
allow. 

But, as far as this Austro-Servian matter went, there it 
should have stopped. Nothing in it was cause of the spread 
of the war beyond. That Balkan troubles would issue in 
war between Austria and Russia was probable, or as good 
as certain; but, if other nations made alliances which 
would bring them into conflict in that event, they have them- 
selves alone to thank for it. 

The question, therefore, here arises Did Germany's Al- 
liance with Austria necessarily bring her in if Russia came 
in? If the answer to that be affirmative, Germany smarts 
for having made such alliance. The answer has been uni- 
versally concluded affirmative; yet only in those mad as- 
sumptions of international compacts whereby, in infallible 
sequel, every flea's jump was to set the world on fire. 
Concluded affirmative? Yes, and with equal readiness 
negative, according to which assumption suited the right- 
eous British arguer's mood at the moment. If the terms 
of the Triple made the answer affirmative, how stands Italy 
out, and unhealed with opprobrium by a Britain so virtu- 
ously indignant at treaty breakers? You know very well 
that the use you make of this is based on the assumption 
the answer is negative. Sir E. Grey's pleadings, reported 
in despatch forty-six (see later page 40), also presuppose 
the negative, though the Briton there arguing that, by the 
International Compacts, Germany was not bound to sup- 
port Austria if attacked by Russia was simultaneously al- 
lowing that France was bound to support Russia if attacked 
by Germany! So far as this question, of Germany's al- 
liance with Austria compelling her support against Russia, 
is shrouded in doubt, the uncertainty is due to the inex- 
tricable interlacements and difficulty of separating one 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES , 35 

thing from so many other simultaneous. What slender tes- 
timony the White Paper offers is against an affirmative: 
Germany would not mobilize if Kussia only mobilized in 
South, i. e., against Austria alone.^ And, in truth, there 
is again no evidence that Germany would have entered if a 
reasonable assurance existed that the war could lie be- 
tween Russia and Austria merely; on the contrary, the 
evidence is that she would not, but knew this too hypo- 
thetical a case to dwell on. 

Assuming the negative, namely no treaty-bond, as the 
British did when it suited them, Germany were only con- 
demnable for her armed intervention if: 1. She had no 
title by the complexion of the present case. On which 
Britain argued: Please don't have any; iecaiise France, 
with confessedly none, must be allowed to have full (see 
pp. 40-2. 2. If Russia was verily not meditating hostility 
to her also. And the poverty of these White Paper de- 
spatches for throwing any certain light on that point is too 
palpable; they are here too exclusively Ostensible! We 
do not, however, require any despatches to teU us that 
many and weighty matters existed between Germany and 
her huge Eastern neighbour, nor that she would in any 
event be very closely touched by a war between that coun- 
try and Austria. That, her sympathies, apart from all 
her Alliances, would in general be with Austria rather 
than Russia, and that her interests would similarly cause 
her to lean the same way are likewise foregone conclusions. 
It may be added, also, that such bias was in the main ac- 
cordant with justice and the true everliving interests of 
man, though of this we have more to say under Alliances. 
In the particular instance, by the evidence before us, such 
as it is, there is no ground to doubt that Germany sin- 
cerely wished peace between Russia and Austria, much 
* Despatch No. 43; also 108 and 121. 



36 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

more sincerely than we wished peace with her; nor that 
her action was in essence defensive against Kussian Ag- 
gressive; some momentary gleam of a possibility of stand- 
ing out, if properly guaranteed, swiftly swallowed in the 
certainty that no guarantee would be given. A passing 
thought of guarantee from Russia saving spread of war, 
standing in strong contrast with France's eager prestate- 
ment she would take none from Germany! A request for 
self -security vastly different from the demands which Brit- 
ain subsequently made of the German! Who never said 
to Russia: You, offering not even the colour of violence 
to me, seeking my friendship rather, shall only engage with 
your foe on terms of my dictating; whether vanquished or 
victor shall, in conclusion, go home again with nothing 
save your labour for your trouble : He has not yet reached 
these depths of sanctimonious effrontery. Then, leaving 
the assumption of no bond or predetermination and grant- 
ing that Germany had made express treaty to support 
Austria, or from the start of the Servian dispute, was 
resolved to support Austria if interfered with in that, who 
is there can say she was wrong? Britain, of all nations 
on earth, by her own conduct in the further developments 
here, has the least tittle to breathe a whisper in criticism of 
such determination to support a neighbour. 

With Germany involved, the war could still have re- 
mained in the East ; nothing save France 's action brought 
it into the West. But, before proceeding to that, look at 
these despatches pleading for peace between Austria and 
Russia, for Germany not to support the former. 

For the first : They are all identical in spirit with those 
pleading for peace between Austria and Servia. The one 
argument submit that dispute to the Power's decision. And 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES i 37 

we have already said enough of that ; need not express our 
pious thankfulness that, whatever followed, this was not 
again done. Russia would have been willing for it, and it 
is made guilt in the two Teutonic nations that they were 
not. The four to whom the decision was to be left were 
Britain, France, Italy and Germany. Three of those four 
had already pronounced adversely to the Austrian: much 
fairness did the Slav show ! Leave it to the Powers again, 
who have so often happily damped it down before and ever 
to spring in renewed vigour to-morrow. The Chairman 
Power glorying in utter contempt of the justice of the 
quarrel; the minority of one alone having ever expressed 
the least care for this. It is Germany 's steady refusal to be 
again a party to such godless futility that is the one thing 
the human mind can dwell on without loathing. Help me 
to save the peace, said the Briton. With all my heart ; and 
earnestly did her endeavour to further reason among the 
parties, ownful of unreason in her ally, too, yet aware of 
the iron limits. Britain wished peace by patching up the 
matter anyhow, lest fire kindled scorch her own pretty 
complexion: Germany wrought for peace on solid basis, 
prepared to take the issues of it proved unattainable solid : 
Which is really the criminal? 

For the second: If there be any truly British, in the 
grand old sense when the word was synonymous with soul 
of fair play, straightness in dealings generous frankness to 
foe as to friend, and, however completely now shut out 
from smallest voice in their nation's deeds, one cannot but 
believe there still are such men, these, in their study of our 
White Paper, must early have been struck with a certain 
thing, which, as they realised its proportions and signifi- 
cance, might have filled them with amazed horror and 
indignation, had their knowledge otherwise gained of 
modem British statesmanship left room for amazement or 



38 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

special indignation at any trick it played in slippery 
cunning or course it pursued openly in persuasion of mag- 
nanimity devoid of integrity. What I refer to is the 
proposals made by Russia, France and Italy that Britain 
should declare her solidarity with the two former, unite 
with them three, or two, in menace of Germany; and the 
way those proposals were listened and replied to by Britain. 
The proposal is first made strongly in despatch number 
six and repeatedly after. Pray announce your determina- 
tion to fight along with us, if Germany persist in counte- 
nancing Austria ; and, in the face of such a threat, she will 
at once cower out; it will be in the interests of peace that 
you should do so. Sterling Briton, thus addressed, had, in 
tone of sleeping thunder half awakened, answered : Silence, 
sirrahs! And immediately informed the German of the 
Proposal: There, sir, friend or foe, know by this your 
neighbour's tempers, what sort of impartial hearing they 
are prepared to give your AUy 's case. And do you suppose 
the German did not know the proposals had been made; 
what sort of answer they actually got ; find himself enlight- 
ened, if further enlightenment he needed, as to British 
sincerity in sequent suggestions made to him? Pinchbeck 
Briton, all gold to the eye, did not fall in with the pro- 
posals, much less answer as above. He received them in 
very friendly manner; courteously explained his discreet 
opinion that the interests of peace would be better served 
if he continued to enact the role of disinterested party; 
and — well, continued to enact, in such fashion, now fully 
transparent to all eyes friendly or hostile. A behaviour 
thoroughly accordant with decadent English character and 
solely possible to men steeped to the bone in mendacity, 
swallowed in the blackest of terrestrial curses, the apotheo- 
sis of Attorneyism; gaining for itself also the unanimous 
endorsement of the masses (similarly saturate) as per- 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 39 

fection in any role does. It is second nature to an attorney 
to plead with passion, 'real' for the moment by his brief, 
even in full knowledge of facts contrary; and the Prime 
Minister, later, for his objects, named some German pro- 
posals infamovrs; yet have I met no Briton who knew these 
to be so. 

And, in fact they were not. In the circumstances, it was 
nothing perfidious for France and Russia to beg: Unmis- 
takably announce your determination to fight along with 
us — since you are so determined. No, gentle Allies — Beg 
pardon ! No, loving members of an Entente uncommitted, 
we must maintain the fiction — Alas ! I stumble again. For 
of course it was no fiction. Of course not, said they. And 
Husht! Messieurs. Who said I was determined to fight 
along with you? "We see, said they. Who doubts they 
saw? It were a dolt indeed that did not. Yet naturally 
persisted, in the firmer confidence accrued, to urge their 
view; it being merely a difference in opinion as to Osten- 
sibles, the reality understood to mutual satisfaction. So 
Russia 'deplored' the effect upon Germany of a notion 
that Britain would stand aside; and Grey soothed with a 
Pooh! Is there not dumb show enough in our fleet? 
Plenty of dumb show and very easy to read. While 
France, no wise abashed by the comforting answer, con- 
tentedly toed the Line set by susceptibilities of British 
Conscience; and passed on to discuss preparations in 
common for war — of course only in the hypothetic possibil- 
ity of your deciding to join us: We will not again press 
you for any more definite assurance on that head. Most 
unnecessary that you should, Messieurs. No, the proposals 
were not infamous. Yet I know of few things better 
meriting the description than the answers they got. 

Among other things that might provoke amazement, but 
too sorrowfully cannot, is despatch 46, where Sir E. Grey 



40 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

reports his having had the impudence to 'Observe' to the 
German Ambassador 'that if Germany assisted Austria 
against Russia it would be because vnthout any reference to 
the merits of the dispute' (italics ours) 'Germany could not 
afford to see Austria crushed.' This in face of the clear 
fact that Germany alone had ever expressed care for the 
justice of the dispute, and had at the very start plainly 
stated her belief that Austria had good grounds for her 
proceedings against Servia, and ought not to be interfered 
with in them. Sir Edward Grey himself, meanwhile, having 
ever unblushingly expressed a total indifference to the jus- 
tice of the dispute; and in another despatch of the same 
date, number forty-eight, reiterates that if Austria could 
satisfy Russia she might do what she liked with Servia. 
Merit of the dispute ! Sop Russia and damn the merit ; it is 
the want of that sop alone that afflicts me. I said before, 
page 34, that this observation of Grey's presupposed 
belief in no treaty bond of Germany to Austria: It ob- 
viously ought, but I would not take oath it did. And 
if it was that Germany 'could not afford to see Austria 
crushed' how heinous must such a casus helli seem to every 
Briton now fighting lest France should be! 

Britain, enacting the impartial role and rejecting the 
comparatively straightforward course proposed by France 
and Russia, that of a united menace, had her own ideas as 
to how to persuade Germany not to support Austria; of 
which the last paragraph affords one sample. And, in our 
inquiry of veracity shown, the results continue shameful 
to this land our nativity, forbidden veneration. For it 
argues that Germany should not support Austria without 
ever arguing, or, as I should more strictly put it, without 
ever having argued, that France should not support Russia. 
This could only pass at all if the treaty between France 
and Russia was much more definite than that between 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES ' 41 

Germany and Austria; I have met nothing worth regard 
that builds on this assumption. Allow that Germany acted 
more by the present case, will Britain call this less rep- 
utable than act by pledge to fight regardless of present 
case ? That Britain which professed free hand and gloried 
in the right to decide by instant merits in each conjuncture. 
But the truth is that this has passed with the hasty mob 
through a fact of sequence which a moment's reflection 
shows you did not affect the matter in the slightest degree, 
could never by deliberate statesmen have been imagined to 
do so. France would not enter the field unless Germany 
did. No, nor Germany unless Russia did. This fact, that 
France was to be the third stepper, Germany the second, 
does not touch the matter here at issue, namely the integ- 
rity or wisdom of either in entering. Britain deliberately 
besought Germany to leave her Ally undefended if attacked 
and never the while so much as whispered suggestion to 
France that she should similarly leave her Ally in the 
lurch ; yet whatsoever applied to the one case applied with 
equal force to the other. Nay, with much greater force! 
For Germany was necessarily closely touched by war be- 
tween Austria and Russia, France not by war between 
Russia and Germany, far removed from her borders. More- 
over there is very strong prima facie evidence that except 
for her confident assurance of France's support, Russia 
would never have done aught provocative to Germany, that, 
had there been no such assurance, the war might have re- 
mained between Russia and Austria. Still Britain kept 
arguing with Germany: Don't you, convinced of justice 
in your Ally 's quarrel, support her ; yet never said a word 
of similar import to France ; knew fully from the start, as 
all the world did, for this was public property and known 
to be without an if, that France was definite to strike in. 
Nothing save that knowledge produced the pleading: As 



42 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

I said before (p. 35) the plea was, Forego your title "because 
France must be allowed full tether for hers. A long 
tether? Ay, and a strong, could haul the whole British 
Empire in. One sees not what business Britain had to sug- 
gest either that Germany should not support Austria or 
France Russia, but to urge the first without the second was 
totally indefensible. If we had right to plead so with 
either, then overwhelmingly the greater right to plead with 
France ; because of the mighty obligations which our states- 
men well knew, though the country at large did not, she 
was under to us; in reality only daring to act as she did 
from confidence of British cover. Finally, of this, be it 
clear that I am not suggesting it was really possible for 
Britain, in those late hours, to demand of France, to hint 
to France, that she should not support Russia; but the 
fact that it was impossible made it perfidy in her to ask 
the passivity she did from the German. 

Proceeding now to the question of French intervention; 
also of Britain's sincerity of wish that the war should 
remain in the East: With Germany involved, of which 
question we have already spoken, it is, of course, palpably 
undeniable that nothing except a declaration of neutrality 
by France could have prevented war in the West; and 
equally undeniable that such declaration would. Here, in 
the case of war in the Western theatre, it is perfectly 
certain that the French and the English were the aggres- 
sors, that Germany acted as compelled for self-defence. 
By the circumstances, absolutely no manner of call lay 
upon France to join in: Word pledged to Russia is the 
utmost she can plead. I say not that the word pledged 
should not be sacred, but bid you note that there was 
absolutely no other ground. If any mortal believe that 
the word was either given or kept just for God's sake, why 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES ^3 

afflict his innocence? And therewith and We will leave 
France's share to her own conscience. 

But, on the no-question of France or Germany the ag- 
gressor add : France, toeing the line to suit susceptibilities 
of British conscience and bettering instruction, kept ten 
kilometres from her frontiers after mobilisation; and, an- 
ticipating demand of neutrality from Germany, as known 
not aggressive upon her, had many times stated she would 
never give it. Yet, by these delicacies of manoeuvre has 
persuaded yov, of her lamb-like intentions, Germany's 
wanton inroad, in character of devouring wolf? — And of 
the eleventh hour treble Peace still! Both Russia and 
Austria have consented, so exquisitely set off to an ad- 
miring audience by these French trippings on the light 
fantastic toe, what other word than simply, Too late! 
Germany could not possibly pause then on any plea of 
further discussion. Delay would have been extremely ad- 
vantageous to every other, her Ally included; to herself 
perilous. What sort of sincerity there was in the Austrian 
consent you have but to read despatch one hundred and 
forty-one to know; one hundred and thirty-nine for Rus- 
sia's humour to Germany in her consent, aforesaid very 
cheap. With such odours regaling her nostrils, Germany 
would have been a nose of wax indeed to pause. The 
plea was the old accursed futility of submit the Austro- 
Servian matter to the Powers for settlement, with certain- 
ly no increase of likelihood that a peaceable patch-up till 
to-morrow would be once more arrived at. A ground for 
suspension which none honourable could then have made to 
the German; which no German who knew what's what 
could at that hour do other than totally disregard. That, 
in a straight, courteous manfulness, compliance was ex- 
plained impossible is creditable, for the suggestion might 
justly have been altogether ignored. 



44 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

For England's sincerity of wish that the war should 
remain in the East: 

Alas ! it is a sort of mockery to speak of sincerity in her 
doings here. Yet I grant that, when the inevitable sequel 
of his acts comes upon a man, he may often wish intensely 
enough that they could be avoided, and exhibit a spectacle 
of very strenuous zeal in that direction. England, in a full 
knowledge that France had engaged herself to Russia, 
entered into what you call an Entente with her. Not an 
Alliance ? Oh, no ! Count Bruhl, a famishing dog in sight 
of a too dangerous leg of mutton, long comforted himself 
he had never signed anything; but this did not help him 
out of Pirna, if considerably i)ito. Maria Theresa, too, with 
troops ready massed on the border and Allies on march, 
when demanded would she attack him (Friedrich) this 
year or next ? replied vaguely in limbo, swore the Partition 
Treaty against him non-extant, a thing of his own imagina- 
tion merely. Whereon Carlyle comments: Since she 
would have shuddered at the lie direct, I suppose it was not 
on paper; but truer in fact no treaty could be. Had 
England ever honestly wrought that war in the East of 
Europe should not cause war in the West, she would have 
used her endeavours to induce France to terminate her 
Alliance with Russia ; for this Alliance was the standing 
menace, and sole cause why war in the East should provoke 
war in the West. Had England ever wrought that she 
herself should not be involved in war through war in the 
East, she would have absolutely refused to enter into any 
arrangement with France so long as her alliance with 
Russia existed ; would have made the termination of that 
alliance an inexorable sine qua non before she put herself 
under any species of obligation to assist France. These 
are certain facts, wholly indisputable. But England was 
possessed with a dread of German Aggi-ession, to the blind- 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 45 

ing of her eyes and the corruption of her heart; equally 
by them. And she wrought persistently in favour of 
mighty Combination which should effectually checkmate 
German evil intentions. Not wishful of war. If you please 
so to describe it, passionately desirous to preserve peace; 
and hoping to do so by raising such a formidable-looking 
barrier all round the Bad Teuton that he would never dare 
to try breaking it, but die in sight of victuals like goose sur- 
rounded by a circle drawn with chalk. For never yet were 
the counsels of men with such an aim informed by wisdom, 
but always have their plans been shady, and their workings 
brought upon them the thing they chiefly sought to avoid. 

Last, in these Ostensibles, is Britain's Intervention. 

Let us look first, though it does not come first in time, 
at that peculiar offer made by Sir Edward Grey, which 
has been applauded, by Sir E, T. Cook among others, as 
a sort of acme in magnanimous generosity, and sealing 
proof of intents charitable. It is in despatch number 
one hundred and one, where Grey offers thus: 'If the 
'peace of Europe can be preserved and the present crisis 
' safely passed, my own endeavour will be to promote some 
' arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which 
'she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy 
'would be pursued against her or her allies by France, 
'Eussia, and ourselves, jointly or separately, I have de- 
' sired this and worked for it, as far as I could, through 
' the last Balkan Crisis, and Germany having a correspond- 
'ing object, our relations sensibly improved. The idea has 
' hitherto been too Utopian, Etc. ' Of the value of such an 
offer, in International Politics, from the point of view 
of its being that of a single individual in the insecure 
tenure of a British State Secretaryship, it is superfluous 
to speak. Granting the promise binding on the nation, 



46 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

on the three nations, it would remain sufficiently peculiar. 
In the first place it admits — shall we say frankly admits ? — 
helplessly and in spite of itself, admits were nearer the 
mark, that the attitude of the three so promising nations 
had been and was of a nature to somewhat strongly call 
for assurance from them that their intents were not hostile 
or aggressive; and may surely at once pass muster as so 
far veridical. Whether the German would find it an item 
of much weight in assuring him of the fact so acknowl- 
edged? Hardly, I should think. Might better find it a 
sealing proof of the quality of our magnanimity and char- 
itable purpose. But the message did not intend to convey 
recriminations on the past, nor shed light on it ; it was for 
security in the future. Dear friend, not foe I hope this 
instant, submit to-day, at our ardent intercession let 
Austria go to pot, and / for reward, will promise to do my 
private utmost in the to-morrows to obtain for you an 
Agreement whereby each of these three now in threatened 
league against you shall enter into bond that they will 
never more, either singly or collectively, pursue a policy 
aggressive or hostile to you. Such fact, to drunk sense too 
Utopian, was all you ever sought, bond for it you never 
asked. But never again! Never again! I swear it on 
my knees beseeching grace. This shall be a lesson to me ail 
my days remaining. If we can read it quite so without 
stretch, some breath of personal sympathy for Grey may 
weU be in us. 0, Sir Edward ! this turn dropped from my 
pen as I wrote, without premeditation, and has banished 
aU harsh feeling toward you. For I can believe it may 
have been thus with you. Yet the leopard does not change 
his spots. And as for any species of security to Germany 
in the future having been hereby offered, there is not the 
shadow of such a thing. Did the remorseful one, really or 
hypothetically remorseful, himself even contemplate a re- 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 47 

moval of the fences, not a strengthening of them, if given 
further time to do it in? Checkmate to be abandoned? 
Perhaps I should not have gone so far in these ambiguous 
realms. Perpetual check, check, without a mate — or for 
your mate's sake, and your own — is also a known thing; 
if often pleasing to the checker, somewhat liable to grow 
irritating to the checkee. Then stalemate is surely the 
fairest draw of all, long reckoned even, and leaving hon- 
our to the staled. Chalk line itself can be charitably 
circumscribed, the confined ones grow fat enough; all cir- 
cumscribers consent they'll not disturb the circle, and the 
Goose clearly a party to the compact. Happy stay within, 
instead of discontented; and our Policy triumph at last. 
See ! child, we will teach you to build your own ring wall, 
at least you shall have a hand in building it, then shall 
you sit blessed in freedom from check, whilst we sweep 
wide o'er the earth in unburdened cheer. The offer was 
peculiar; if you can read a gleam of private grace in it, 
'tis happy so far; but to speak of it as magnanimous, to 
refer to it in any way as of the smallest weight in the 
issues, betokens strange latitudes. 

These things are a little pregnant, reader! Choice of 
sequence, not unadvised, would you grapple with the whole. 
Turn back, then, to what is called The Infamous German 
Bid for British Neutrality, 

I will say foremost that this British description of Ger- 
many's conduct is 'amazing,' even to me. I have nowhere 
met the like of it; in sheer sodden mendacity of soul, it 
surpasses everything of its kind I have heard of, and 
deserves to be held in permanent record as a non plus ultra 
in that line. Here is no knave's shuffle, no hypocrite's 
deliberate suppression of the truth, but an open, publicly 
declared and printed, statement of the facts as they were ; 
and then an interpretation instantly concluded of them, 



48 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

for campaign of unctuous eloquence and self-righteous in- 
dignation, excuse and cover of most fateful deed, utterly 
and glaringly in total incompatibility with those facts, for 
which those facts offered no momentary possibility of a 
conceivable colour to any honest-minded mortal. Such 
emphatic stricture may not apply to many members of 
the general public who only heard of the facts through 
the interpretation, or along with it; but I could not reduce 
a syllable of this stricture for the men who gave out the 
interpretation at the same time that they made the facts 
known. Germany, looking into now almost certain war 
with Russia, and knowing, as you and all the world did, 
that France would not remain neutral but side with Russia, 
aware also of certain vain pretensions tenanted in British 
lodgings too sadly furnished with them, had the candour 
and forbearance, suppressing all comment on those pre- 
tensions, to say thus, through her Chancellor: 'That it 
'was clear, so far as he was able to judge the main principle 
'which governed British policy, that Great Britain would 
'never stand by and allow France to be crushed in any 
'conflict there might be.^ That, however, was not the object 
'at which Germany aimed. Provided that neutrality of 
'Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be 
'given to the British Government that the Imperial Gov- 
' ernment aimed at no territorial acquisition at the expense 
'of France should they prove victorious in any war that 
'might ensue. 

'I (Sir E. Goschen) questioned his Excellency about the 
'French Colonies, and he (the German Chancellor) said 
'that he was unable to give a similar undertaking in that 
'respect. As regards Holland, however. His Excellency 
'said that, so long as Germany's adversaries respected the 

^ That same Britain that a little before had called it unwarrantable 
for Germany to refuse to stand by and see Austria crushed. 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 49 

* integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany was 
'ready to give His Majesty's Government an assurance that 
'she would do likewise. It depended on the action of 
'France what operations Germany might be forced to enter 
'upon in Belgium, but when the war was over, Belgian 
'integrity would be respected if she had not sided against 
'Germany.' (Despatch number eighty-five.) What is there 
either of 'bid' or 'infamy' in this? What did you expect 
of Germany? That when engaged in war eastward, she 
should just shoulder arms along her western border ; stand 
patiently waiting there till the French were ready to attack 
her ; and then, in height of fantastic heroism merely defend 
the border, resolutely brush back, if she could (you will 
allow her that right, I suppose?) any French attempt to 
cross. Yet never under any provocation herself set foot 
beyond; and, when the war was over, retire with sage 
bow and lifted hat, remarking, Our deepest thanks to you, 
Messieurs, for this spiritual exercise, and all good hopes 
the amusement has proved beneficial to you. It verily 
seems that little short of this would have contented you. 
And I know that your rage arose through finding your 
baseless prescriptions not obeyed and diplomacy turned 
to water. What shadow of a title had Britain to settle 
the terms on which Germany should fight France, that 
Britain which had never done aught to keep France from 
seizing opportunity to satisfy grudge ? Is Britain the God 
of this lower world ? And what just God would lend cover 
to one to side against another, then forbid that other to 
exact the least penalty if victorious? You call it an 
infamous bid by Germany, and the fact was an infamous 
dictation of terms by Britain. Infamous dictation wisely 
recognised extant, and dealt with in an admirable restraint. 
The German, wisely perceiving the existence of certain 
pretensions in some heads, where, however baseless in fact, 



50 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

their existence can in verity become momentous enough, 
saw that it could profit nothing to give the least expression 
to his thoughts of those pretensions, though we need not 
doubt he had his thoughts, but in a manful prudence 
mildly enquired : How far do these Olympian ideas extend ? 
Beyond thisf And Britain, in immovable majesty, dis- 
daining affront, replied from aloft : Of course, far beyond. 
Not outgone in forbearance at the first blush, merely with 
the eye suggested : Barest propose a limit to our sovereign 
jurisdiction ? Who could treat with you. Gentlemen ? Ger- 
many may defend her countries, quite large enough for 
her in our supreme decision, our Almightiness graciously 
concedes so much; but, by our omnipotence, and world- 
shaking nod, let her expend what blood and treasure she 
may, she shall go home again with nothing save her labour 
for her trouble ; no hair of France 's head shall be harmed, 
and she, meanwhile, under our sheltering wing, have free 
allowance, if victorious, to keep whate'er she can wrench. 
O soul of Equity! must not the whole just of the earth 
rise in sternest wrath to crush the thievish miscreant would 
not before entering conflict take oath on demand at once 
and humbly to observe these righteous terms? Truly, I 
have never met their match, and grow in respect for the 
German could still restrain and try yet further : Will you 
if we promise not to infringe Belgian neutrality — and even, 
it would seem by speech in Parliament, though it is not in 
White Paper, forego our right to attack the northern coasts 
of France — shall you, even on these extreme compliances 
with your Lordship's arbitrium — and bravely, without a 
hint they were compliances and the arbitrium most ex- 
sufflicate — refuse to promise neutrality ? Imperious Yes, we 
will and do refuse. We may perhaps, on those conditions, 
permit you to enter the war without us for terrible opposite, 
but will give you no manner of assurance that, once in, we 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 51 

will not fall upon you in time and circumstance convenient 
for us. 'Tis easy now to see that the second offer was 
useless; for he who named the first a 'bid' and 'infamous' 
could only be confirmed in exalted spurn by an amendment 
conceding more to folly's vain impious challengings, O 
British Jove offended! ominously grasping the lightning, 
I can tell you one way in which Germany's 'bid' if then 
ever made, might have been infamous. The way of own 
course honourable, when the bare suggestion of your dream- 
ing to lay down a rule whereby she should fight might 
well have shocked you with its atrocity. 

Along with this claim to dictate the conditions of Ger- 
many 's combat with France, simultaneous throughout, runs 
the figment of British Free Hand, no binding obligation to 
bestir on France's behalf, but liberty to take any side 
according to judgment of merits of each particular case 
might arise. You pledge yourself to maintain Belgian neu- 
trality (whereon a word further shortly) ; you stand re- 
solved that you will permit to Germany no territorial 
acquisitions at the expense of France, or her Colonies, in 
other words, that, if she have war with France, she shall 
on its conclusion go home again with nothing but her 
labour for her trouble; what more one knows not; but 
finally, and above all, you undertake to protect the northern 
coasts of France and prevent by force any attack upon 
them by Germany. And then you say you were not under 
treaty obligations to fight on France's behalf! Never was 
more hideous mockery of faith ; vilest conspiracy, plotting 
for attack and partition, were clean in comparison. Those 
despatches of Sir Edward Grey's, wherein he expounded to 
France and Russia the delicate and fine distinctions which 
left Britain no treaty ally but a member of Entente, with 
hand free, were not purposely cunning at all, yet did 



52 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

simply point the way. The Russ was thick of comprehen- 
sion at first, but the nimble Celt perceived in a twinkling, 
and with eyes privately twinkling, though listening to Sir 
Edward 's dissections with all sobriety of countenance. Just 
so, your Excellency. The British Lion owns no harness, 
and the Island Ape which rides him cannot intervene 
except under certain contingencies. Adieu, till to-morrow ; 
we will not importune you till wanted, and when wanted 
you have told us. "We proceed then alone, yet secure of 
your aid the moment we act thus and thus. [Incredible as 
it may seem to a German, only credible as it is to Man when 
sadly conversant with the phosphorescences which once 
noble moralities gone putrid sometimes exhibit, Sir E. Grey 
did not mean: Act you in such and such a fashion in order 
that our hands may appear clean to the world; he wrote 
in sincerity, what is called sincerity, yet no whit the less 
simply pointed the way.] 

Instead of open declaration of common cause with 
France, conclusion of definite alliance offensive and defen- 
sive, you gave France secretly the utmost cover it was in 
your power to give short of such definite bond, and prop- 
erly it was not for Prance's sake but for your own. And 
then, if the German would have conformed to the outrage- 
ous conditions imposed on him by that cover, you might 
perhaps have been content to stand neutral. Great was 
your magnanimity! noble your rage that the Teuton re- 
jected your conditions. The Prime Minister made a great 
point in his speech, and inflamed the country with 'in- 
famous' German, by exclaiming: Were we to stand by 
with folded arms and see the northern coast of France 
bombarded ! that coast left undefended through our agree- 
ments with Prance ! Most true, by your agreements! How 
came those coasts to be defenceless? Why was the French 
fleet concentrated in the Mediterranean? You secretly 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES S3 

made compact to defend those coasts so that the French 
fleet could leave them; and then exclaim as if their de- 
fenceless state were one of helpless innocence, calling to 
humanity for protection, came by no subtilty of yours; 
and say you had free hand to decide every case on its 
merits ! It is the fearfulest exhibition of shameless sodden 
mendacity I have come across ; no ' perfidy ' could be worse, 
if this be not perfidious. You wished peace you say? 
And, to preserve it, privately made arrangement with one 
neighbour which gave him the fullest cover you could con- 
trive; for the other, had thereby laid down conditions of 
combat utterly outrageous, devoid of any sort of basis 
ouside your own convenience: Then proclaim yourself 
Champion of Right unwillingly forced into war by consid- 
erations of highest duty, because the one made that use of 
the cover afforded him he was sure to make and the other 
refused your delirious prescriptions of conduct for him ! 

On the question of Belgian Neutrality it is not necessary 
to say more than a word further. One could have well 
wished it respected by all, but knows not how it could have 
been so by Germany. One thing is quite certain, it was 
not Britain that should have been foremost in demanding 
it, but Belgium herself, in direct friendly interchange with 
Germany, not through appeal to Britain in preconclusion 
of hostility and palpable leaning to one side ; or, next, by 
France, equally in the way of direct mutual agreement 
with Germany; and Britain only, if at all, as honestly im- 
partial third. But it is folly to speak of the probities 
which might have been. Alas! no, which never had a 
chance of being. For Britain to demand it as she did, 
especially in conjunction with other items in the same 
despatch, was at once a threat of Beware! or I come in, 
unless you conform to my rules as self-constituted Marshal 



54 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

of these Lists. And thus, to the German, the thing was 
from the first suspicious, and to be rejected, as obviously 
not demanded for equity but in the interests of his ad- 
versaries. For Germany to grant it, too, was a much 
heavier demand than for France. The German said he 
had unimpeachable evidence that France meant to attack 
him in that quarter; and personally, I have little doubt 
the French assurance was given in the certainty it would 
never be required of them to fulfil it; that the swifter 
moving German would be the first to cross the border, 
and so they could throw the opprobrium upon him without 
risk to themselves. For the Belgians, it is sure that, 
however they may have desired to escape damage, they 
were not neutral of spirit but exceedingly adverse to Ger- 
many. It has been said, since the war began, that, if 
France had violated Belgian Neutrality, Britain would 
equally have gone to war: It is sufficiently probable she 
would — on just the same side she now has. Britain would 
not have sided with Germany against France for Belgium 's 
sake. All men know that completely, and the saying she 
would is a deliberate Lie, straightforward enough for once. 
A thing just safely said after, known without any founda- 
tion. A most godless farce is all this pretence of British 
championship of Belgium. On every ground, care of Bel- 
gium 's welfare would have counselled : Yield. On that com- 
pulsion, yield; grant the Germans the free passage they 
demand. This alone had been the magnanimous course, 
and most earnest persuasion of any champion for Belgium. 
I am not quite saying you were called to do this ; but you 
are emphatically called to admit that, in urging Belgium to 
resist to the utmost on promises of help you knew could 
never reach her in time, you were deliberately throwing 
her under the harrow of war, to possible loss of national 
independence, for no other object than to gain time for 



OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 55 

yourselves. Had Belgium then been Ally the urgement to 
resist had been fair; to a neutral, it had nothing in it 
'magnanimous,' can only pass as natural to self-seekers 
diligent to use all means within reach to gain their own 
ends. Neither is there any manner of doubt that Britain 
solely ever undertook to support Belgian Neutrality by 
force for her own interests in fear of Germany's power. 

In summary of these Ostensible Causes: Except, it is 
a big exception, Britain's possession by dread of German 
Aggression, involuntarily made all too apparent, no Real 
Cause comes to light. And, when you speak of Real Causes, 
you have to ask, even of that Dread, whence came it ? What 
ground;, if any, had it to stand on ? Hence no answer what- 
ever is given here to the question — ^Why are we at war? 
but only is how we have come to be at war a little told. And 
the true value of these White Paper Despatches is as docu- 
ments testifying of the integrity of the several writers, as 
representing their nations, or at least Governments. In 
this view, the Servian is cunning shifty, and wittingly never 
shows true face. The Austrian and Russian keep their 
motives hidden, reveal to impertinent curiosity no more 
than their proud heights deem suitable. The French are 
clear, incisive, declare a singleness of purpose, whatever 
wiliness of method ; namely to make the most of the oppor- 
tunity if it come now, with readiness to wait for a better 
if need be. In the German a grand resolvedness, weight 
of meaning, sagacious instead of alert; very determined 
indeed, yet restrained forbearance, rising to fateful enter- 
prise unescapable in meditations cloudy profound; their 
words have everywhere a right sterling ring. In the 
British an utter hollowness, most zealous pleading far re- 
moved from all contact with the facts. No secrecy of the 



56 OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

eoiLscions hypocrite,, but that bottomless mendacity which, 
self-contemplating its own false face truly rendered back 
in the mirror, cries on the world to witness. Saw ye ever 
a fairer or more blameless 1 



CHAPTER ni 
BALANCE OF POWER 



Ill 

BALANCE OF POWER 

Many other Ostensible Reasons for this war and the di- 
plomacy which led up to it, besides those exhibited in the 
White Paper, have been urged by responsible persons; 
and among them we find the time-worn plea that a pure 
zeal for the maintenance of what is called the Balance of 
Power entered largely into the matter. Now, where this 
argument is put forth, it is, of course, assumed, by way of 
fundamental axiom necessary to the argument's validity, 
to be desirable that no one European Power should grow 
much stronger than another; also that it is possible for 
human skill to prevent such an unhappy occurrence. Alas I 
sirs, we drop plumb down at the first step; and have to 
amend the axiom before we can so much as start, or even 
get foothold to stand on. Ideals are so lovely, contemplated 
in vacant azure; and we all know how clay-encumbered 
they become when translated into the prose of earth. In 
view, therefore, of the so evident undesirability to each 
Power of such restriction on its own growth, the axiom 
is made to run that it is desirable for the nations to be so 
grouped together into two opposing camps that the collec- 
tive strength of each group shall balance that of the other ; 
and possible for human skill to achieve this, though the 
perfect ideal be abandoned as too Utopian. But thus at 
last, say the adherents to this Political Doctrine, shall 
Peace be kept. Namely, by the obvious futility of a war 
infallibly bound to result in a mere draw, and so prove 

69 



60 BALANCE OF POWER 

sheer loss to every party. At the risk of condemnation for 
again slitting up a Moon-calf unkillable, one might begin 
by asking: "When did the world ever see this, I will not 
say actually done, but so much as verily aimed at? When 
ever yet was it the aim of the Group, any more than of the 
nation, to simply balance the opposite group, and not to 
ot^erbalance to its own side? You that see blessedness in 
the possible attainment and preservation of Even Poise, 
search through world-history and all diplomacy 's workings 
and minings since Adam, we give you a wide range, and 
then announce to us one instance of a nation or group, 
grown heavier in those sacred scales of yours, reducing its 
strength to restore the equality and bring the obliquity 
of the Ecliptic back to its proper position. We are ready 
to give you hundreds of instances of self -sacrifice and mar- 
tyrdoms more heroic than this done and suffered for very 
strange faiths. Come, gentlemen, out with your instance. 
Where is the Unique ? Maybe some of us would like to go 
on pilgrimage to its shrine. Well, if you cannot afford us 
this satisfaction, may we ask: Wherein does this holy zeal 
for Balance differ from the zeal endemic in every pot of 
vipers, where each struggles to get its own head uppermost : 
Two knots of them struggling for the super-poise, you say, 
instead of each singly. And that the divine exorcism of 
sinful lust? It is to be feared not; but only some crafty 
priest's absolution conundrum. Germany's overweening 
pride, you commence again — But, excuse me, you must 
not, not on this hypothesis of Balance. For how can you 
possibly bring any question of morality into this? By this 
hypothesis, the strength of the opposing parties is to be 
kept equal; and I never heard that such a thing was 
desirable between Good and Evil. But perhaps you were 
going to conclude, as on the premises you quite fairly 
might, that the said overweening pride, by disturbing the 



BALANCE OF POWER 61 

poise, made it in the interests of justice incumbent upon 
you to help the other scale with a due modicum of the 
same article? In which case, I beg pardon for the inter- 
ruption. Nevertheless, some among us misdoubt that a 
Balance so kept level must need pretty continual adjust- 
ment, remain ever tremulous, and little hope of a stable 
equilibrium being reached for it this side of doomsday. 
Are we, then, really asked to believe that all that diplomacy 
was to preserve Equality, the present battling to restore 
itf Britain, perceiving that the German scale was becom- 
ing the heavier, flung a spare million tons or so into the 
Franco-Russian; and now, having flung her whole weight 
in undisguisedly, purposes to stop fighting as soon as the 
scales come about to par again; forbidding any overplus 
at the Franco-Russian end of the beam with the same 
magnanimous resolution that she forbade it at the Teu- 
ton 's ? No intention to throw Germany on her beam-ends, 
Lord! no. Where would the Balance be then! But the 
diplomatists are never weary, would soon construct afresh 
with aU the old checks and appliances. My friends, your 
Balance of Power, as a thing ever actually aimed at, is a 
Lie total. 

What of it as a Notion? Now I should be loath to teE 
you of notions more seraphical, said Oliver, with a certain 
archness. Men have had them, spent their blood like water 
for them. Reverting to it again, then, as a pure Ideal, in 
somewhat different sense, Emersonian superior to consider- 
ations of friction. What is it? Very ww-Emersonian, 
whose call was Forward! in the limitless ethereal which 
knows no bond and expands forever in the light oceans of 
intelligence. Dear old status quo. Such a homely and 
practical sound ! Seems rather a sudden drop from aerial 
speculation and notions seraphical? Why, truly, I cannot 
warrant either the aeriabaess or seraphicality j yet, however 



62 BALANCE OF POWER 

broad-based, thick-quilted in habitude, and stolid in inertia, 
no notion is more utterly a nothingness and dream of air. 
In any time, let the now existing boundaries and powers 
remain without further change ; it is always so comforting 
to many to imagine that this can be; and, naturally, the 
more so to those on whom the fates are not calling for 
increase but for allowance to new Power, which also has 
its part to play in their arena. The thing cannot be done ; 
for the powers and boundaries are under an irresistible 
compulsion to change so long as Time lasts, and wisdom 
never is a blind resistance to this law. Mere clutching at 
the wheel of destiny, of old proverbial for height of peril- 
ous folly. Does not every nation grow from small begin- 
nings to a mighty stature ? And who shall ever say to it, 
Hitherto and no further? Neither the flow nor the ebb 
can be prevented ; all diplomacy 's workings thither directed 
sheer cobweb, and battlings futile. As a Notion, this 
maintenance of Balance is the ancient thought, now known 
infidel, that the Future can be chained under the Past and 
the Present; endeavoured, forever doomed to utter impo- 
tence. 

Carlyle spoke of this matter directly, and, for the noble, 
with conclusive finality. Hear a few of his words on it: 

* "Balance of Power, they tell me, is in a dreadful way: 

* * * Certainly if one can help the Balance a little, why not ? 

* "But Julich and Berg, one's own outlook of reversion 

* * ' there, that is the point to be attended to : — Balance, I be- 

* "lieve, will somehow shift for itself!" On these princi- 

* pies Friedrich Wilhehn signed. . . . Fleury and George 
'stand looking with intense anxiety into a certain spectral 
'something, which they call the balance of Power; no end to 
'their exorcisms in that matter. Truly, if each of the 
'Royal Majesties and Serene Highnesses would attend to 
'his own affairs, — doing his utmost to better his own land 



BALANCE OF POWER 63 

and people, in earthly and in heavenly respects a little, — 
he would find it infinitely profitabler for himself and 
others. And the Balance of Power would settle, in that 
case, as the laws of gravity ordered which is its one 
method of settling after all diplomacy ! . . . " Tush, child, 
you do not understand. In these tremendous circum- 
stances, the celestial Sign of the Balance just about cant- 
ing, and the obliquity of the Ecliptic like to alter, how 
can one think of little marriages? "Wait 'til the Obliq- 
uity of the Ecliptic come steadily to its old pitch," ' — 
Frederick, Bk. 5, Chap. 3. 

Ah, my brothers, if you would look up to Celestial Signs 
you might find them very steady; but, when your battle- 
smoke has cleared away once more and you do see the 
stars still there in their unerring courses, what sort of an 
earth will you have made out among you for them to look 
down upon? Think not that your eyes were on celestial 
signs when you awakened this hell-pit, for they were not. 
And had Britons hearkened to that Voice of the Age, 
which is to sound through Ages yet and be heard by 
others if it will not by them, then had the word Balance 
of Power vanished from their vocabulary, or remained 
only as a by-word of contempt, if it could not reach the 
silence which wraps all sin and delusion in pity. 

It is no argument in favour of a falsity that it owes its 
currency to its being a perversion of a truth; for that is 
what all falsities do, and the very wherefore of their detest- 
ableness. Two things, neither of them by any means 
merely notional, but of an extremely real existence in the 
actual world of politics, the one just and the other vicious, 
work under the name of solicitude for the Balance of 
Power; or rather, I am afraid, it is mainly or solely the 
latter which so works, under pretence of being the former : 
I mean Precaution against Unjust Encroachment, and En- 



64 BALANCE OF POWER 

deavour to prevent or hinder Sound Growth. It is through 
professing to be for the first of these that Balance of Power 
arguments are able to pass so loosely by; but it is the 
second which always informs them with virulent life, and 
to it do they owe their grip upon jealous mankind. Neither 
of them has any more concern with the balancing of 
power than with the unbalancing, and when that plea is 
made, the first is seldom or never within it; for truth re- 
jects a lying guise; whilst the second rarely parades in 
any other dress than this. Unless by good fortune it can 
don a sacerdotal, so gain title to excommunicate the 
Common Enemy — I will not say of Europe, but leave it 
large. "Why soar so high a flight as this either, when a 
mere police tunic, more suitable to these civil ages, might 
yield a yet desirable title to exterminate ? Or in our days 
of Specials,^ just in workaday suit with all sins unannelled, 
volunteer yourself Constable sworn to do the Almighty's 
bidding. Which, no doubt, you Tcnowl 

Yes, both these things are very real; and it will not at 
all satisfy that you admit the first only, not abhorring, 
not diplomatising and battling as strenuously against the 
second. Unjust Encroachments, or attempts at them, are 
constantly being made by ambitious neighbours, and equally 
perennial, quite equally damnable and banned of God, are 
the Endeavours of jealous and envious nations to prevent a 
neighbour 's increase of power, simply because that Increase 
would be unwelcome to them. Are not these two things 
twin brethren of one soul; all exclamations at the former 

^ The large numbers of special constables were sworn in in England 
on outbreak of war. The author living among the numbers, and hav- 
ing done his share of road patrolling in winter nights, examining 
church steeples for wireless installations and other freaks of shyitis 
dictation. When a nation sinks into venomous suspicion and kills 
the pre7 of its own delusional 



BALANCE OF POWER €5 

as nefarious by those actuated by the latter a damned 
hypocrisy ? You may have laid it down as a fundamental 
law of your policy, to be acted on the moment occasion 
arise, that a certain Nation shall not acquire what would 
raise it to an equality with, or preponderance over your- 
self; but, unless there are reasons — and, mark you, I do 
not say unless you can advance reasons^ but simply unless 
there are reasons — why this should not occur, your 'law' 
is null. In fact, it is not a law laid down, and you would 
have been wiser not to call it so, but only a claim entered. 
You have entered this claim; and such claims can be 
entered in faith, or from an instinct, which after events 
prove to have been well founded ; but you mistake radically 
in imagining that the fact of entry justifies title. So far, it 
is nothing but a claim, with all evidence to support it or 
controvert it still to be heard. It is to heaven you have 
appealed, and / know myself wholly incompetent to give 
the answer; do merely examine the manner in which you 
have made the appeal;, and your motives in making it, so 
far as visible. 

Here, then, may be the place to ask the Reader to dis- 
tinguish well between those Certainties and Dubieties 
spoken of in Proem; between things asserted to be and 
things left, whether temporarily or permanently, in the 
clouds of uncertainty. I think I may say that such clear 
division between the known and the unknown does exist 
in my own mind in all now being written of. This is not 
intended for flattering unction; no reader need imagine 
I am going to turn things round, conclude to his comfort 
the Briton is the right god after all, the German a cursed 
miscreant. Nothing like it; nor quite the reverse, either! 
Yet remember that no degree of evil in one will make 
another virtuous; that because one is wrong, it does not 
by any means always follow the other is right; much less 



66 BALANCE OF POWER 

that there is no deeper law of right and wrong than any 
we can fathom, by which the Issue is really sure to go. 
Gain the victory, either side, and will it profit you to 
believe you got it by what chiefly put it in jeopardy, 
nearly o 'erwhelmed ? Do so, and the next time it will be 
more than nearly. But does man owe his strength to his 
foes' wickedness? His strength, his valour and wisdom 
which can alone be his strength, must be in him as a living 
fountain, pure and to keep pure. If not enough in him, 
the wickeder may have the triumph; and he, cleansed, re- 
emerge to the lasting victory, if not on earth, then in 
eternity. Yea, give over the notion, too, that however 
much in him, the rightly noble can always outfence every 
terrestrial opposite. What does our highest symbol, the 
Cross, symbolise, if not the renunciation of that proud 
dream? Renunciation more victorious than any victory. 

Cognate with which more general reflections are these 
particular ones that, whereas the Unjust Encroachments 
and all the diplomacies which envelop them are neces- 
sarily unwise, the Precautions taken against them may be 
either wise or foolish; and that, whilst the jealous-born 
Endeavours to Limit are inevitably vicious in their origin 
and their every manifestation, the Entity they seek to re- 
strict may be anything from demigod to gallows-carrion, his 
thrust and parry exhibit the whole range of human fac- 
ulty, heroic to subter-brutish. By the hypothesis in each 
case, the godly is excluded from the one side; but it is 
not therefore to be found on the other, or the devilish 
absent. It is partly this which so normally renders it diffi- 
cult to know which side has the right ; especially since, what 
in matters international is eminent^ true, it is never a 
case of Right versus Wrong, but only of a preponderance 
of right on one side, of wrong on the other. An argument, 
by the by, which those opposed to a very preponderant 



BALANCE OF POWER 67 

right are exceedingly fond of — ^when beaten; they never 
give it a hearing till. Yet it is not difficult to know these 
four: The Unjust Encroacher, and the Human Warder 
against him; the Envious Seeker to him, and the Living 
Irresistibility impelled by Nature's force to reach the full 
stature he is capable of. For the methods, whole procedure 
of the genuine two are as totally diverse from those of 
the spurious two as their spirits are. The genuine are, of 
course, very similar to each other; likewise the spurious. 
Unjust Encroacher and Jealous Suppresser are as said, 
one identity; he who is himself rich in noble expansive 
vitality will prove the surest guardian against wrongful 
aggression, as the stoutest uprooter of fences set up with- 
out warrant. The eighteenth century Austrian, who joined 
in Partition Treaties to keep down a Prussia threatening 
to grow out of small into Great, was the same entity that 
itself sought to swallow Bavaria; and the Friedrich, who 
expounded in true virile development, was the same who by 
Fiirstenbond checked his aggressive neighbour's expansion. 
Remember those examples, study them and learn how the 
Unjust Encroachers and the Jealous Forbidders wrought 
all by sly methods ; and, claiming Justice the while, charged 
on the neighbour all those iniquities themselves were guilty 
of. How the Expander in nature's development claimed 
only what was his right ; and, when forbidding aggression 
in another, stepped frankly in on best of an express in- 
fringement of right then in course of perpetration. 

Then look at the present case and ask yourself which 
category it comes under. We none of us believe for an 
instant that Britain plotted for a wanton encroachment on 
Germany; so that that goes out of the reckoning at once, 
though France and Russia may not be so easily absolvable, 
and Britain's alliance with them leaves her doings not a 



68 BALANCE OF POWER 

little ambiguous to many. I shall call it an alliance, unless, 
perchance, conspiracy be a truer synonym for your En- 
terite! Granting this, the Briton did not conspire with 
the Frank and Russ out of lust for German territory. No ; 
it was out of sheer dread and timorous apprehension. Our 
much valiant leaders have assured all Peoples of this, and 
tabled satisfying proof. Britain's awful cover was lent 
that pair of lovely innocents to warn the Wicked One, 
subdue him by majesty of mien; no bond to enter strife, 
nor resolution to, unless her fearful countenance proved 
unavailing, when, of course, the Incorrigible 's guilt must 
assoilize her. Likewise does all question of Germany 
having acted out of jealousy of neighbour's increasing 
power go out of the reckoning; that is not the thing 
charged, nor have you anywhere claimed that she was 
inspired by the same high motives as yourselves. The 
charge is that Germany was meditating wanton aggression ; 
upon whom is not exactly clear, but pretty well all creation 
within feasible clutch, as we are asked to believe. And 
the Plea is that Britain acted in needful Precaution against 
this meditated aggression, not from jealous determination 
to forbid increase. Verily? Will you stand to that? The 
Just will listen to no plea of needful precaution put 
forward by one in whom the jealous forbiddal was. But 
you do rather corner a man, and make it difficult for him 
to define your doings without palpable contradiction of 
them. State one thing fairly and in accord with your plea, 
then proceed to its companion inseparable in integrity and 
the ground yawns under one; yet, perhaps, after all, these 
things do but render the true definition the clearer. One 
has to look things in the face, too, and take by the beard 
if need be. You see, at any rate, that I give no allowance 
to your axiom that Germany was never to grow any bigger, 
if much at a loss to know where she was trying it in late 



BALANCE OF POWER B9 

conjunctures. I have yet no surety the Eternal has not 
ordained she shall grow considerably bigger. But how is 
it possible to state your case for you, if, the moment after 
one thing is agreed for premise, you stop me with a tenet 
wholly opposite to its direct infallible corollary? Impos- 
sible to state it for you on those terms, yet still possible 
to state. Motive pure precaution against unjust encroach- 
ment contemplated in general, no instance given ; therefore 
motive not envious, jealous, acts not informed by least 
desire to prevent or hinder healthy expansion and true 
growth. Nay, by God, sir, she shall not acquire another 
acre, not even if victorious in war with one who refused to 
stand neutral. Is she not the one Power we need to fear, 
sole Rival to our sway, and single nation that we dare not 
face without a double backing? Cut her down; no other 
aspires to our sublime level. Thou a Briton to whom the 
World belongs, and not zealous for so dangerous a co- 
exister's reduction! Sirs, I live in the world and coidd 
welcome a Peer. Yet in the lists for Rivalry your axiom 
is valid; and, having claimed brute nature, you must be 
left to its trial of strength. Not overchivalrous lists in 
this case; much advantage prepared and taken for the 
onslaught. But I well knew how largely the sin lay simply 
in co-existence. 

And if instances of the intended agressions he given? 
But look first at those ascriptions of boundless ambition 
to the German. And wisely, for they came first and begot 
the instances. That nothing in past German history or 
character lends credit to them, is easily conceivable as 
father of the ambition ascribed, can go for nothing with 
you ; since there is so much in your own lying accounts of 
that history and character which, if true, would support 
them; which, as false, so obviously declares the parentage 
not of the ambition but of the ascription of it. Lying 



70 BALANCE OF POWER 

accounts still persisted in the teeth of the fullest and most 
indubitable revelations of the truth long standing printed 
among you ; written by him to whom the fairest American 
said you owed your further lease of power. And Emerson 
touched on a most profound fact there: It is to Carlyle, 
immeasurably more than to any other man, that Britain 
owes her continued lease of power, though now exulting 
in denial of his word, as those sons of Belial that dwell 
in her, dragging her in leash, or swelling the free cry, 
have throughout done. Not much wonder that they should 
either, considering what a scourging he gave them. As of 
old, too, they shout We are the Nation, we ; and the whole 
Empire solidly endorses, none able to gainsay. Man of in- 
tegrity, slow to believe his neighbour guilty of outrage yet 
reluctantly compelled, would have first made very sure 
of the fact ; and then, if wishful to persuade us, would have 
brought his evidence, saying: By these fruits know the 
tree which bore them. Not so here; quite reverse wise: 
First attribute the aggressive temper, and then interpret 
every motion made. Accept as an article of religious faith 
that this German nation meditated evil; and then see if 
each step it takes does not confirm to the hilt. I never 
knew it to fail to, on those conditions. But it was highly 
necessary to instill this belief first, or to have it sponta- 
neously ready far and wide, needing only to be harped on ; 
since without it the instances given, which with it proved 
so conclusive of devilish purpose, would have sounded very 
curious. The manner of presenting the instances was also 
in perfect harmony. For the Arouser of the Nation's 
Rage did not commence an argument by saying Germany 
seeks to conquer Normandy, etc. No, he appealed: If the 
Netherlands, Belgium, Normandy became German; or if 
France without loss of territory became more or less subject 
to Germany — think what the consequences to us would be ! 



BALANCE OF POWER 71 

Of course the audience had no moment's doubt the enor- 
mity was purposed, and rose in fury, swearing: It shall 
never be, while Britons live. I do not wonder that Germans 
think these things were adroit, astute, etc., though I know 
they came not by cunning calculation, but through the 
speaker 's own fore-persuasion, far removed from veracity. 
Had the presentation of the instances been in the form 
of measured statement of facts, with argument You 
should act thus and thus in consequence, some might have 
asked amazedly, What evidence do these 'facts' of yours 
afford? Germany guaranteed the Netherlands; ditto Bel- 
gium, if she did not side against her ; Normandy, too, was 
secure by the offered agreement not to take French terri- 
tory whilst France and all things French had remained 
unharmed, if she would but have stood neutral, which if 
she refused to do it was surely at her own risk. But the 
Appeal swept all before it by recounting these things itself, 
as in a frankness that had nothing to conceal ; we mention 
them, indeed, and you all know what credit to attach : the 
enormities were purposed; frightful aggression is now in 
course of perpetration, — through our and France's rejec- 
tion of every term, the more magnanimous the hotter brand 
we infamous, also freely told. And yet the fever incongru- 
ity carried with dissentient: not one solitary Mr. Viner^ 
to get on his legs. 

If now we look at the charge against Germany, namely 
that she was meditating Unjust Encroachments, shall we 
say that it wholly collapses ? We must say so, of the charge. 
Shall we, then, say that it has been proved Germany had 
no aggressive intentions? Negatives are difficult, often 
quite impossible to prove. It may be that to a generous 

* Mr. Viner was the sole man in British Parliament who protested 
that the justice of Friedrich's claim to Silesia should be examined 
before it was concluded devilish and warred against by Britain. 



72 BALANCE OF POWER ' j 

mind a vicious accusation soils the accuser only, leaves the 
accused in fairer esteem. True, moreover, that a malicious 
indictment, sinking into unseemly heap when subjected to 
cross-examination, impotent to establish the guilt it asserted, 
does yield an increased likelihood no guilt was there; be- 
cause it is so much more usually the virtuous that are the 
objects of such attacks. But this is the utmost that can be 
affirmed as the result of an examination conducted as this 
of ours is, namely by dissection of the Prosecutor 's evidence 
alone, without ever calling on the Defendant for his. And 
we do not call on you for generosity. We shall say simply 
that, whether responsible German statesmen, — we do not 
need to go to Germany for Jingoes and Rabids, — ^had cloud- 
dreams of a new Western Empire, Britain its pretty 
islet, or not, the demand, or suggestion of French Neu- 
trality is by itself sufficient to absolve them of having had 
any immediate purpose of trying to realize those dreams. 
Alas! France and Britain would not let Germany fight 
Russia alone, less victor she should grow mightier. By re- 
sponsible British Statesmen's own showing, it was this 
Dread of Ultimate Aggression, and no imminency of ag- 
gression that brought the war west. 

Then look at the Plea again, namely that Britain's meas- 
ures were Precautionary against foul offence, not jealous of 
neighbour's growing power. It coUapses totally, in every 
sense. For grant that the aggressions were intended, that 
Germany, in those large schemes you are so sure of in her 
haughty noddle, did purpose to advance like an Attila Host 
west, once secure of inroad from the east, and you will 
surely not call your 'precautions' noble or wise? Good 
heaven ! I know not what meaning you attach to the words 
'noble' and 'wise'; what igfnobility and height of folly you 
would not so denominate. But I do know that no man to 
whom those words were rightly applicable could have acted 



BALANCE OF POWER 73 

in any single step of this business as you have done; his 
methods, whole mode of procedure, like his spirit, had been 
different from yours in toto coelo. We have seen what the 
British methods actually were; integrity's ward of injus- 
tice nowhere to be found in them. And if any of those so 
feared acquisitions by Germany should now take place, 
rightfully or wrongfully on her part, who and what, think 
you, will have precipitated, furthered such result? But if 
British whole procedure has been completely incompatible 
with the knightly guard against wrong, it has been very 
consonant with the jealous endeavour to stop growth; nor 
have I the smallest doubt that the central principle of our 
policy here, admitted or not admitted to themselves by the 
contrivers of it, has been prevention, if possible and by all 
available means, of any further increase of Germany's 
power. Neither did this principle of policy arise solely 
through threatened equality or preponderance, so unwel- 
come to Eaces long dominant, but from far deeper causes 
also ; causes not to be entered on in this chapter. 



1 



CHAPTER IV 
SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

This chapter is, of course to be something of a sister to the 
preceding ; and we propose going through it thus : Namely, 
to open with a brief glance at Systems of Alliances. But, 
quickly, leaving this, to look at National Alliances, as ge- 
nerically. Engagements entered into for all manner of pur- 
poses; for performance of which all manner of bonds are 
given. Then, thirdly, to consider the fundamental distinc- 
tions by which such engagements can be everywhere more 
properly divided into Alliances and Conspiracies. Fourthly 
to remind you of those profounder depths, cognizance of 
the existence of which leads you to know that human com- 
pacts are much more determined by elective Affinities, ele- 
mental Repugnances, than by motives of Expediency, tem- 
porary interest. Concluding the chapter with an examina- 
tion of each of the 'Alliances' in present case. 

(1) Systems of Alliances are part and parcel of the 
Balance of Power doctrine ; and are as disreputable, lying, 
and frightfully pernicious. They are a making of friends, 
instead of a choosing; and friendships cannot be made to 
any doctor's prescription. I stand too solitary in creation, 
see my brother over there hobnobbing with his 'longside 
mistress and her one-time leg, now grown independent, 
stretched out away from him ; fear he means to cozen over 
to himself what was her neck, whereon two heads have since 
gemmated.^ Most ominous! I must myself in haste con- 
* Italy, the Ehine countries, the Netherlands (now Holland and Bel- 
gium), all at one time Austrian. 

77 



78 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

fabulate per contra; temper the Bear with honey and train 
oil, make him sweet with Oriental spice, stroke down the 
Leg, and take exception to no wanton kick in Tripoli, the 
toe scarce reached to Egypt; cocker up the heads, or one 
of them, to spit back fire if coaxed or threatened, ( 'tother 's 
too phlegmatic, and I've had experience in hoisting him; 
believe he'll prove intractable to Teuton's wile) : Above aU 
must I make love to the bright-eyed Celt : a pretty enough 
bedfellow and nothing jealous, though her whim of having 
me couple with her huge hairy pet goes something against 
stomach; but if, out for a jaunt together, the fashion of 
that darling creature's garments be commented on, I too 
can say they are Persian. Misery of various sorts does 
make a man acquainted with queer fish for bedfellows. 
Alack! Bull, could you see yourself, as for clouded sense 
you cannot, you might marvel how you came by such a 
pair of simultaneous unmentionables. Surly Hyperborean 
and brisk light- wench, the pink of tripping politeness, what 
made them unite in soliciting, lead you on betwixt to tumble 
for their sport ? Shocking, Bull ! and sport with profes- 
sionals known something mercenary. But did you ever try 
begetting Futurity 's Hope on the like of these before ? And 
would not bachelorship have been preferable to yielding up 
your house to their mad racket, even if no legitimate wife 
to help keep it in order were obtainable? 'Twas not my 
own house, growls he; had to go abroad, mind theirs for 
them : All that bad brother 's fault ; and, damn him ; he shall 
pay for the crockery my dear's broken. Besides, I know 
he meant to smash me next. Well, if the brother were 
admitted, however cursed for the nonce, there might still be 
hope that rage fraternal could yet end in amity. 

I stand too solitary in creation; and once I thought the 
isolation splendid. Why, surely, if you did take pride in 
isolation, it was but an opposite phasis of the self-same 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 79 

spirit which later made you slink in with Trinculo and com- 
pany ; such benighted companionship the just god 's punish- 
ment for the pride. But to check wild play and try it a 
third time : I stand too solitary in creation. — Truly ! Bull, I 
think in a way you do. Not many an honoured Paterfa- 
milias and Citizen of earnest state, by nature so heavy- 
laden, pious, have I seen careering on the public highways 
with so oddly matched a pair, one on either arm ; kiddy Japs 
and Portugals incited to join in, and all the decent family 
in uproar at your heels. Or a fourth time, and get it ; for 
you see how much I have it at heart to check wild play un- 
becoming to staid and solid Papa. I do not mean to argue 
that a nation should seek to stand alone, take pride in isola- 
tion, any more than a man should. How then come by ally? 
Even as the private man should. By doing each its own 
task manfully, in self-sufficiency competent to stand single, 
yet open to all noble brotherhood and loyal copartnery; 
thereby growing into sterling amity with any other that so 
does and stands. We have to choose our friends indeed, and 
he is wise who can do that well. Yet every worthy would 
shrink from exercising diligence to obtain a friend. If met, 
he is the grace of heaven; which does shower its riches 
round, and many pass over for one that clasps and cherishes 
the godsend. Such things may sound strange to diploma- 
tists; yet I can believe in diplomatists also who would rec- 
ognise them for essence, without which the thickest, most 
unsightly husk were empty of kernel, much more gilded 
shell manufactured that never was borne by the living. 
Now System of Alliances stands in direct opposition to this ; 
starts with the idea that friends must be obtained, as dan- 
gerous to be without; that, in short, you must go out into 
the market and buy them for what they can be got for. 
Doubtless, in general, the cheaper the better; yet supreme 
skill and triumph in outbidding. A haggling temper 



80 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

scarcely commendable where Kingdoms and Principalities 
are up at auction, — reserve shrouded in mystery, and risk 
of withdrawal if it be not reached. In which view, there 
are perhaps few concerns wherein British large-mindedness 
and open-handedness shine out with so pure an effulgence as 
in this of Bidding for Allies. Little George ^ went running 
round to everybody, eagerly enquiring; Will you fight? 
Here 's for you, if so, — hand to breeches ' pocket accompany- 
ing. But of all bargains ever struck by Britain (or cap- 
tures made^ if you prefer that description), the late one 
with France will probably be allowed the brightest jewel in 
her diadem; so vast a largess thrown, and no return de- 
manded, except simply to persist in her own will. Yea, of 
yore, Britain knew no price too high where duty called. 
And, then, the godly often have to hire who will not fight 
for love. — or make assurance doubly sure. Moreover, if it 
was all done to secure Ally for own safety, were not that in 
perfect accord with the principle of System? Hold! or we 
shall be concluding the fifthly before we 've commenced the 
firstly. There is no firstly; Systems of Alliances are wind 
and blue vapour. Besides, I told you we should only 
glance and ever quickly leave it. 

Yea, but in another sense, there is. For it is too palpable 
now to all men that Systems of Alliances have involved the 
world in war through a dispute between two. Not mere 
wind and blue vapour this. Well was it written, the wildest 
dreams and most spectral Shadow Hunts of men can catch 
hold of facts and send them madly whirling ; or, if not that, 
catch fire themselves. Here have you been in vain wisdom 
sky-building to your fancy ; hoping by evident mightiness of 
sequel to prevent the small beginning might spread none 
could know whither. You would be gods to know whither, 
and settle that beforehand. Now that the sequel is upon 

* fieorge II, vide Friedrich. 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 81 

you with a vengeance, do you know whither? One has 
heard of many contrivances for building houses fireproof, 
but this was the strangest: To build a costly palace, or 
world's Town Hall and Council House, with saloons for 
Concert richly dight, entirely of explosives, and then inhab- 
it it, 0, Nations all ! secure at last that none dare strike a 
light. But why should / continue 1 Have not the heavens 
pronounced verdict? Light struck; and more fearful con- 
demnation of mortals' doing seldom thundered over earth 
from Almighty's throne. 

(2) National Alliances as, generically, Engagements en- 
tered into for all manner of purposes ; for performance of 
which all manner of bonds are given. I meant this defini- 
tion to cover all possible agreements between nations which 
can be formulated and signed as treaties : Which can be, I 
say, whether they are or not. Ententes, I know, reckon 
themselves very slippery fish. The Agreement may be good 
or evil, sound or rotten ; no restriction of that kind, nor in 
degree of import; neither are ink and parchment, bewit- 
nessed signatures, or solemnities of seals affixed, necessary 
to it ; side glances tell what should be understood without, 
and the continent impassive the better read each other, none 
wist they had a thing in common, or ever met before. To be 
the agreement must, of course, exist ; the limit here that it 
be for definable objects, could name specific items. Often it 
is reckoned more desirable to leave the object undefined. 
The Entente gave out no aim save sweet reciprocity ; milk 
of human kindness flowing free o 'er gall of bitterness. How 
lovely! For, of course, it was to heal and not to hide? 
Gall, submerged from view, gained no increase by being 
shielded from the physicing sunlight all rejoiced to see play 
on the milk? Items may require to be specific, that of 
engaging to protect the northern coasts of France was suf- 
ficiently so; and highly desirable to keep from the light! 



82 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

Lest the nation, catching sight of it, should have cried Stop ! 
We see the object: This pleasant flirting is growing too 
dangerous practical. We keep it from the light ! How can 
you say so? answer they. The item, possibly, as decency 
ordained; but you cannot have the face to say you never 
saw the object? No, gentlemen, I saw it lang syne, and 
have not the face which you and the nation unfortunately 
have. The nature of the Entente was clearly the same as 
that of the Kingship and Church, transparent humbug ; and 
the Decency Principle was precisely what made it accept- 
able to a People long used to such, every mortal that asked 
himself full witting. Bond for performance, too, why 
should this be given in a mere Entente f Sacrament of mar- 
riage inviolable is called in question nowadays, and Union 
Libre is more accordant with freedom's spirit. Offers no 
impediment to consummation before, either; and, in these> 
connections, it is usual for performance to precede bond for 
it. No child may be conceived, we all call God to witness 
how devoutly we hoped it never would be. Not till the 
unlucky birth is imminent need we call in the priest to 
absolve, pronounce his benediction on Alliance ; then, with 
faces shining in new won grace of heaven, publicly declare 
how far we had gone, get the priest to christen the offspring, 
lawfully born in wedlock, nature's latest Messiah to lead 
your armies to victory. You calculated well, for I perceive 
the Priest has everywhere done it. 

To return: Limit that the engagement be for definite 
objects. Now all the more valid and fruitful Alliances be- 
tween nations, as between men, are of tacit character ; they 
exist only, rooted in the silent deeps, and are properly 
incapable of being made the subject of Treaty, though no 
treaty which does not rest more or less upon them can be 
good for much. It is a fatal thing to go against these 
underlying Alliances in making treaty, dangerous not to 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 83 

go with them; but they themselves require no treaty, and 
cannot be brought under terms. Cultivate them, and you 
are little likely to be without express Ally in the day of 
peril; neglect them, and if you have any save the devil's 
legions to friend it will be a strange chance. They are 
sacred things, whereof Ententes and Union Lihres do offer 
ghastly parody. But so far as it is for us to speak of these 
it must be under the fourth heading ; only no word on the 
articulate, specific, written in forgetfulness of them, could 
be true. 

We do not need to go into those multitudinous minor mat- 
ters which are continually fit subject for International 
Agreements more to be classed as business contracts than 
as political treaties. Except to say that, if degree of im- 
port does and should affect sparit, it should never affect 
rectitude. And, in fact, it never does, since he who belies 
in the trivial will play false in the weighty too. But how 
does and should degree of import affect spirit ? You do not 
study covenants for hosiery quite in the same temper that 
you do those of Grace and for Works ? Possibly not ; yet, 
methinks, these casual covenants are among your soul's 
works also, and if Grace be absent in the hose there is little 
hope of its presence in the heart. Verily, it is not so much 
the degree of import you attach to the matter in hand but 
the degree of import you have found in life that determines 
your conduct in every matter. Business contracts! Yes, 
and with all the trickeries and sordidness which defile busi- 
ness, sow mischief, and bring disaster, or the ugliest of aU 
'successes', riches and depravity. Base compliances are 
everywhere base, but perhaps the more hideous when the 
wrong is done or permitted for the sake of a good, — as is 
imagined. Whereof we have seen so much. A fundamental 
of The Concert. Neither is there the least doubt that for 
years past British Policy has in many a Russo-Persian, 



84 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

Italian, Franco-German, matter been dictated by urgency 
of wish to make friends with all adverse to the German, give 
offence to no friend of his who might stand by him in his 
hour of need. Not but that I know a noble prudence possi- 
ble in that direction also; here ignoble, and British appre- 
hension made use of to gain that which could not otherwise 
have been got. 

Coming up to the greater: When contemplating these 
recent makings of Allies and what we ever knew such doings 
must issue in, it has often been impressed upon me that no 
express alliance for joint acts offensive or defensive ought 
to be entered into unless for special cause and limited time. 
Again, you may well say, they never really are. Definite 
Alliance may no more state its objective than indefinite 
Entente; but the specific objective is ever there, alone gives 
life and soul to the alliance. Germany and Austria, France 
and Russia, may have severally each sworn to support the 
partner, if attacked, without saying hy whom attacked. 
But they well know by whom in each case ; and, if they had 
not, had never signed compact. Leaving these /ore-swear- 
ings, however, shall we say that no express transient Alli- 
ance for specific purpose not springing from the tacit, rest- 
ing on its deeper bond, should ever be made? I think the 
deepest intuition answers : It is better not ; yet leaves a large 
allowance to frail mortality, and shrinks always from con- 
demning for mere failure to transcend. Friedrich at the 
Gambler's Table, their dice all loaded, sometimes had his 
own loaded: Pity, sympathy, no spoken acquittal. Fried- 
rich, with definite and just aim, not primarily asking either 
France or Britain to help him, found those two to him 
extraneous parties bent to join in, will he, nil he, on one 
side or the other, namely on opposite sides ; and balanced, 
as able, which it would be expedient for him to strike bar- 
gain with; leant to Britain and, had she met him fairly 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 85 

with own aim just and definite, had closed with her, but 
finding her too lax and shuffly clapt up with France in- 
stead : Shall we say that this is always wrong ? We cannot 
justly do so. "With neither, he had been left with no ally, 
Well? But it seemed too perilous. Yet the sequel rather 
proved he had been better with none. It is easy after- 
wards to see his fairer course had been to, so far as possi- 
ble, avoid offence to either, close with neither; and, doubt- 
less, a demigod had so foreseen. Yet even with the demi- 
god there could be no hard and fast rule against accepting" 
such chance ally as offered best by the moment's con June 
tion of interests. Ah, yes, there are expediencies of tht 
noble as well as of the mean; and he who is deepest cog- 
nizant of the perennial, eternal, is he who has the finea 
finesse in earth 's deeds, the oblivious too clumsy with all his 
cunning. Vast everywhere, likewise, and in all times is the 
difference between infirmities, slippings, compliances and 
weaknesses of man with just aim learning the world and 
threading his way, and diabolisms of the case-hardened 
old stager who has abandoned integrity, or of the cute 
young who has never had it to abandon. It may be that 
you cannot fasten on Sir Edward Grey any act like that of 
Klein-Schnelledorf and Niesse, bombarded with life-destroy- 
ing ball yet for show. Nevertheless, he so guilty there stood 
in the main on realities ; battled for truth, and increased in 
true intelligence of men and things; grew, we may say it, 
nearer to God, though making sport of His name. Whilst 
your Sir Edward has never seen truth's face, nor believed 
in her existence; her invisible armoury not worth to him 
one stack of serviceable firearms, and ridicule of right where 
the mightier force gave power to trample : to him Expedi- 
ency is sole bottom, the living rock unkenned. And zeal 
for Woman Suffrage, eloquence for Principle most conso- 
nant. 



86 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

(3) The fundamental distinction by which International 
Engagements can be everywhere divided into Alliances and 
Conspiracies. I do not know if it has ever struck the reader 
that there is such a distinction ; and if there were a Ruskin 
living to nail one to etymologies, the distinction might not 
hold as to the words. For if to conspire signify properly 
to breathe together, link itself with inspiration and spirit, 
Conspiracy might more fitly stand for the highest of all 
possible unions, — as with some among us it does; might 
supersede Alliances, or bound together, as too servile weak 
a team, — quite unsuitable, we know, for heaven unfran- 
chised Entente. And if the formal treaty of Alliance did 
offer a preamble In the name of the Holy Ghost, it has long 
ceased to reveal much a Living Presence through its buck- 
ram. Then, why should not Conspiracy announce Pente- 
cost come; each breast inflamed and tongue loosened; no 
Tisiphone there to make the rocks reecho Vengeance 1 But, 
as Oliver was wont to say, our business is to speak things 
not words ; and since, through whatever perversity of fate 
or chance. Conspiracy has come to denote a combination of 
men actuated by ill-will^ only 'breathing together' in com- 
mon hate, and alliance usually presupposes good will, at 
least between the parties to it, we shall take the words in 
that sense ; namely as significant of good or ill will in the 
parties. Yes, that is how we meant to draw the distinction ; 
sufficiently vital; cleaving to the bottom and ramifying 
whole substance. Alliances are positive ; Conspiracies nega- 
tive. The first are primarily for affirmation ; they come by 
common endeavour to assert truth, and never originate in 
opposition! The second are essentially for denial; they 
seek the destruction of some true man whom their Principles 
damn as arch-foe of humanity. Alliances are of eternity, 
Conspiracies of time. The first are self-subsistent, and 
would be the same were there no antagonist in the field j the 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 87 

second are factions of an hour, springing into existence 
from enmity to a third ! Alliances are of Love ; most de- 
bonnaire, and free in all graceful manlike welcome to every 
compeer. Conspiracies are of hate ; they are engendered in 
spite, full of venom, dark and crooked in their every work- 
ing. Alas ! not always, not always. I have said long since 
that the ancient notion of the Devil, as being necessarily a 
Malicious Entity, was due to his oppressed condition for- 
merly. In days of yore, that is, when he was so unfairly 
compelled to appear chronically in the Opposition seats, be- 
fore men had hit on the plan of cleansing him of spleen by 
electing him Ministerial. Yet the cloven hoof will out ; and 
our Ministers ' speeches these hours cannot be justly said to 
lack much in venom. 

But beyond drawing your attention to that same funda- 
mental distinction, for future (and prior) reference, it is 
not my purpose to speak immediately any further of these 
Antipodals. Nor, more than formerly, to use the word 
Alliance solely in the strict sense here given to it, though 
Conspiracy be throughout used in no other sense than here. 

(4) That human compacts are more determined by elec- 
tive affinities, elemental Repugnances, than by Expediency, 
temporary Interests. Sir E. Grey is not alone in regarding 
expediency as sole bottom, though several that sit on the 
same Minister's Bench with him would scorn to name it 
where their Principles were involved. — And what an ex- 
celsior loose could be given to these, once he had proclaimed 
expediency, sworn it was your skins that were imperilled, 
and made it clear how care for them had ever been his 
guiding principle. Ah, then, let honour's godlike zest 
break through the cloud ; and Principle be owned sole mo- 
tive. But, leaving these phosphorescent awhile, turn to 
the sound, and you more often find Expediency named true 
motive. There are times when the vast majority of the 



88 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

most honest capable can recognise no other, or, at least, are 
shy of asserting any other articulately to themselves. 
Friedrich pooh-poohed the high magnanimous heroic role so 
temptingly laid out before him; said solidly that Sover- 
eigns had to be guided by their interest. It was a worthy 
answer ; and he who gave it knew what was his interest as 
no other there did what was his ; neither did any antagonist 
exhibit a tithe of the heroism and magnanimity which he 
did. Frequently, these things are the helpless rejoinders 
of the sterling to idealisms they feel to be slim, yet cannot 
see fully how and whereby, nor declare for themselves a 
motive that does transcend ' interest ' ; veracity 's instinctive 
recoil from things fatuous, and healthy injection of all 
visionary good. They, the honest, never reply so to a con- 
crete manhood calling them to deeds which are high in 
verity ; and their answers to the pseudo are pitiable, lovable, 
reverable, never detestable, like the sordid 's fasten on dirt, 
his rejection of the real as visionary. It is so unhappily 
true that most of those who profess a soul beyond expedi- 
ency are visionaries; the moment they touch on practical 
fact they declare to men versed in it that they simply do 
not know what's what; and I find a better promise of 
heavenly kingdoms in the doings of the most stolid mun- 
dane who does know what 's what than in any of the pretty 
songs or solemn anthems those others sing and chant. 
Carlyle above every man taught this, therefore so many 
times a rock of offence even to genuine idealists, like Emer- 
son: That the true Highest of men is chiefly cognizant of 
the doable, knows what's what better than any other; can, 
and does by very bias of his nature, live in the world and 
for the world. 

In contra-distinction to the terrene, who sees no ground 
for Alliances save interest, stands the religious, who believes 
they should arise through communion in one Faith. And 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 89 

he is right ; or, when authentic, is striving toward the right ; 
would be right forever and in all cases were his faith suf- 
ficiently cosmic. Parallel with him, parallel and never in 
contact, always disputing the first place with him, and in 
these days quite supplanting him in it, is the devotee of 
Principle, who argues, or should argue, in his own peculiar 
imitation of the same key, that Alliances ought only to be 
made with nations which profess the like. At their best, 
Men of Principle are poor creatures, something pseudo at 
their best, and the Living of that tribe occupy themselves 
wholly with the mechanical, in 'mere political arrangement,^ 
as Carlyle early described it; not in the Man chosen, but 
only in the Method by which he is chosen do they see sal- 
vation. Barking rabid at a noble Kaiser, they step forth 
seriatim to eulogise a Chamberlain, who, having come in by 
the narrow wicket of their law's prescribing, must have 
ascended to the right hand of God, whatever quarrels 
mutual infirmities were source of whilst he dwelt among 
them; and, for the other 'Soul of a Devil' and Nature's 
Abortion. Little rack of memory requisite to recall the 
days when Joey's tange was smudge with similar missile; 
and so when the Kaiser too has shuffled off his earthy -coil 
— ? But he came not in by your straight gate ; and thus I 
hope we may be spared the ordeal of funeral oration within 
those walls. Well, the limits of these gentry are apparent 
enough; but are they genuine within their limits? The 
godly too have damned with frantic emphasis for failure to 
come in by very narrow wickets of their laws' prescribing, 
set terms for the grace of heaven, and sworn that no soft 
rain of mercy could fall without the bounds. Yes, but, 
when genuine, they have never made compact with the infi- 
del to the better punish heresy; wherever that has been 
done we know the branded heresy was native inspiration. 
No true man, persuaded that his Faith or Principle was 



90 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

necessary to salvation, made Alliance with whom it chiefly 
marked sinful in order to preserve his house from inroad 
or destroy an opposite ; but always, from the bottom of his 
heart has said Better no help than that. 

Far beneath and beyond all articulate Alliances, how- 
ever, whether formed for Expediency, in Faith, or on Prin- 
ciple, lies what we call Affinity, Repugnance. These things 
are not contraries, but reciprocals; in the noble, the one 
implies the other; you may rightly say it does in the ig- 
noble also, yet there the former is frequently a mere sequel 
to the latter, temporarily dictated by it. Elective Affinity ! 
Elemental Repugnance! Both may be either virtuous or 
vicious; but, when virtuous, both are alike instant, spon- 
taneous; twin births, each with independent life; and no 
Alliance with one party ever made as a consequence of 
repugnance to another, as, when vicious, is constantly the 
case. The noble loves the Noble, will ally with no others; 
rejects the base absolutely, and will never conspire with 
them whatever the press. Wisdom and Truth unto the vile 
are vile, filth savours but themselves; they affin by nature 
with the mean, and in hate of their opposite will conspire 
with all and sundry. To act in clear intelligent accord with 
the noble Affinities, Repugnances, which are rooted in our 
being, beyond every profession of faith or of purpose, is 
the Unattainable for mortal; our best endeavours but ap- 
proximating. The bygone religions insisted on profession, 
could not do without it; the new has reached so far as to 
know that it must utterly discard this ; that by what man 
actually is, not by what he believes, or will subscribe to, is 
he commendable or condemnable. The common Creedo a 
result, not a cause, which may or may not announce a meet- 
ing at true answer as to item : never capable of being more ; 
and, he who has no coincidence in regard to the item quite 
likely to be in deeper harmony with the infinite. In this 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 91 

profounder sense, no engagement is really entered into from 
community in creed or concurrence in hate, but, intelli- 
gently or unintelligently, consciously or unconsciously, 
every human compact is determined by the inevitable affini- 
ties and repugnances of the parties to it. International 
Alliances, Conspiracies are not dictated by interest, but 
spring from similarity of character, soul's aim and very 
being of the Peoples. What the Peoples everywhere in- 
stinctively draw to or recoil from, their common drift, or 
manfulness in headway, this rules their friendships and 
their enmities, makes these blessed or cursed. 

(5) And now, having cleared or defined the ground a 
little, we may add what further word is here desirable on 
each of the Alliances in present case. 

I am afraid none of them were exactly blessed ; and, cer- 
tainly, the Austro- German is the only one that affords 
ground for consideration as possibly so. It differs radically 
from all the others ; and some things can be humanly plead 
for it ; for the others nothing humanly. These two nations 
are immediate neighbours, largely of one race, and have a 
long Past with very much in common; no vital cleavage 
till the Reformation. Austria for centuries simply the 
chief state of Germany, as Prussia after ; no absolute bar to 
her redemption and reentry. And Union versus Slav, I 
think we may say ' accordant with justice and the true ever 
living interests of man. ' 

"Why Austria should wish for Germany's friendship we 
used no holy ghost to tell us ; the most earthly can answer 
for that. For Germany : Every well-meaning man prefers 
cordial relations with his neighbours, if the price for it be 
not too high ; and churlish ever to reject, unless conscience 
do forbid. Largely here, also, it was a case of the only one 
that offered ; and, as we said above, you may not too strictly 
blame for sealing hand-clasp in such a case. That the defi- 



93 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

nite Alliance was in the main a cautionary act with Russia 
in eye is out of doubt; and not a rag of evidence worth 
notice it was aggressive on Germany 's part, if Austria per- 
chance did find it convenient shelter for some opportune 
nibbles, chafing to the Great-in-Territory, though how she 
came by rights of pasturage over those distant meadows 
De 'il wist. A favourite tickle of his : Where one has right 
to meddle thou hast. But in all earthly-prudent senses, I 
do not think one word can be urged against this Austro- 
German Alliance ; rather do I believe that solid honesty in 
worldly foresight would thoroughly endorse it. And yet I 
must confess that when this war broke out, smote on my 
heart, as on that of every Briton who loves a man and 
knows him when he sees him, I cried: Alone against the 
world! and that Alliance his chief est weakness. Why so? 
Because Austria, as an Anti-Reformation Entity, has gone 
a bad road ever since, remains in the Jesuit's grip to this 
hour, in every essential of the Jesuit? Yes, mainly there- 
fore. The instant feeling that the bond was one with Dark- 
ness rather than with Light; gorge rising at the sight of 
Hohenzollern cheek by jowl with Hapsburg : You know the 
street portraits had it so. And two Britons mourned at 
the pairing? False Britons would shake hands with Haps- 
burg and all hell to hound the other ; cared naught for the 
pairing, except to wish one easier prey for their fangs. I 
thought it ill that Germany, foremost in the van of intel- 
lect and every human good, should be conjoined with grasp- 
ing habitude ; Winner of the Open- Secret chained to dark- 
some Closure ; and man of frankest wit dragged into war by 
vulpine. Yet, as I said, you do not, may not, blame too 
sorely for mere failure to transcend, though I think the 
sequel has once more proved the Solitary had been better, 
and friendless on earth found less on his 'hands than now, 
hooked to the Dual. Let us hope it was of infirmity, no 



SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 93 

incipience of evil affinity. That they who in the highest led 
the way, on whose bravest the new day-spring first shone, 
have not indeed grown less in pity for the lost in woods, 
nor weaker in stable rejection of his beclouded spirit. That 
man born of true kings, battling with anarchic elements, has 
never thought the false king could lend help, between whom 
and hitn is a yet deeper gulf fixed. Nay, I know the bare 
suggestion wrongs him, if we go to the innate affinities; 
yet also know that in him, as in all, the clear intelligence 
but struggles for conquest. 

Of the Alliances 'twixt Italy and these two, separately 
each to each, or collectively the three together, we cannot 
stop to speak: much looser ties, and, in ordinary dialect, 
altogether of Expediency. On the Franco-Russian, like- 
wise, no more than a word: This had no other root than 
common enmity to a third, and was emphatically a Con- 
spiracy. For it, even Principle cannot be plead, since the 
two had none in common. Belgium may well be pitied ; yet 
in stern truth, has reached her present plight through 
unworthy bias and the vanity of a fool blown up by inter- 
ested parties that used her as their tool ; cast not guiltlessly, 
nor quite in innocence, between the points of mighty oppo- 
sites. Japs, Portugals, and minor dogs that scour in the 
wake of havoc : Greed ! greed ! and the hope to snatch up 
pickings in the scramble: Master of the Hunt hallooing 
them on, rejoicing in their bay or currish yelp. Neither 
need we any ghost to tell us why France wheedled for Brit- 
ish cover, Russia chimed in : All for vantage, vantage. 

Then as to Britain's share: We have by no means done 
with that; therefore say nothing resembling a final word. 
Britain most of any has claimed impartial soul, absence of 
bias, act for justice solely. Not surprising that she should 
so claim. Since nothing else could lend a colour to an inter- 
ference so wholly uncalled for, unprovoked, made in despite 



94 SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

of wished for amity, and every manful offer scornfully 
flung back in the teeth with mockery and outrage. More 
shameless than a whore ; for she openly exposes her naked- 
ness and cries come bed with me in sacred Trinity. Yet I 
do not remember having heard it urged her Alliance with 
Eussia was primarily sacred. None pretend that this origi- 
nated in any sympathy with or love for Russia, in good will 
to created being ; so undeniably due to hate of another that 
the less said of it the better appears to be the rule in high 
quarters. But then, of course, the bond iniquitous, long 
obsequiously truckled for, becomes sacred by fortunate coin- 
cidence in fell humour sworn just? For the Alliance with 
France prudent safeguard of own interest has been plead ; 
but the 'prudence' was in fact the imprudence of men 
obsessed with idea, so, naturally brought on what it sought 
to ward off. Had there been any noble care of interest, it 
would have led to very different alliance. Common Prin- 
ciple is also claimed : How utterly spurious the inclusion of 
Eussia is at once sufficient to settle. Prudence, Principle, 
and Eeason were abandoned by Britain when she headed 
this Anglo-Franco-Eussian Conspiracy. Jealous apprehen- 
sion was a main motive with her for heading it; but, as 
aforesaid, you have to ask, Whence came the uneasy dread 
of and chronic hostility to Germany ? How and Why ? It 
was no new thing. For generations past, a most bitter, and 
indeed entirely venomous, Anti-Germanism has existed in 
England ; the vicious elements in her, which sway her state 
councils, which the nation at large delights to see so sway- 
ing, have, in spite of a very strong opposite feeling on the 
part of the noble elements in her, exhibited an ever-increas- 
ing enmity toward the German. And Britain sided as she 
did as a result of that Enmity; for decades her Foreign 
Policy has been visibly informed by it. Her conduct has 
been and is pronouncedly inspired by Elemental Eepug- 



SYSTEMS OP ALLIANCES 95 

nance defying reason. But should we attempt treating of 
that it would be a passing at once into consideration of Real 
Causes ; and we have another chapter to write before com- 
ing to them. 



CHAPTER V 
THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

Probably the most -universally noticeable thing about this 
Combination against Germany is its Magnitude. We early 
mentioned Proclamation of Magnitude, passing over it as 
a vulgar noise, with warning not to let it disturb you. 
Neither should it disturb you, or lead you to forget that 
Mighty Combination among the Powers of this World is no 
new thing. Size makes nothing great, and alters not charac- 
ter by one iota. It may very likely be that this little earth 
of ours has never previously seen as huge and heterogene- 
ous a Combine versus One; for you are all agreed it is 
essentially, as in fact it is, versus One. Nevertheless, there 
have been many who have loomed as large in the eyes of 
their own generation ; been, most probably, as large in pro- 
portion to the then numbers and means; been, most cer- 
tainly, as vociferous united in common anathema; nor less 
triumphant in victory, if they got it, than this will be if it 
gets it. Can you, however, tell me of one such case of Enor- 
mous Odds, leagued for destruction of One, wherein the 
ultimate verdict of fact, the permanent judgment of men, 
their generous sympathy and noblest conviction, has pro- 
nounced in favour of — the Odds? 

Meantime, you who are of the Combine glory greatly, as 
your tribes have ever done, in your Numbers, Vast Re- 
sources. Some few days ago the Daily Paper which I take 
printed a Map of the World, showing parts at peace in 

99 



100 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

white, a sprinkling just sufficient to heighten contrast, some 
insignificant-looking patches shaded, and the remainder one 
huge blot of inky darknesS;, the Blest Kingdoms of the 
Allies, with underneath this proud device: 'There should 
be little doubt how such a war will end. ' One of my for- 
bears used as motto Turris fortis mihi Deus ; fronted there- 
with, perhaps not Principalities and Powers, yet something 
greater, namely Time and Eternity. These were ancient 
notions. And is Great is Our Might so modern, then ? Nay, 
for our dialects likewise change, yet know we a constant in 
man ; and methinks your loud trump, though you may have 
steam bellows and megaphones to help it, sounds a very 
old note. Germany cannot stand against our overwhelming 
forces, she cannot last in face of inexhaustible supply free 
to her foes. For our numbers, who can count them ? Our 
resources who can measure? We can crush her, we can 
starve her ; our might laughs at the thought of her, and our 
Combination is too much for any earthly opposite : Victory 
is secure, and each shall have his portion. But did you 
ever hear it said: 'Take counsel together — '? Yea, as sure 
as God lives, it shall forever come to naught for the con- 
spirers. Yet I say not it is impossible you should succeed 
in crushing. Always a blest result, I suppose, which you 
would thank God for achieving; and Christ wholesomely 
suppressed by gallows? You are shocked at the analogy? 
And the German also starts, as at a profanity? But I 
know that the analogy holds in kind, though not in degree. 
No nation ever exhibits the pure manhood that many a 
single man does, but its acts have always frightful soil: 
Neither would that Man allow the name of good to be 
applied to him ; but too deeply knew it not applicable. And 
I tell you straightly that the same law holds for Nations as 
for men; that mighty Combinations to crush do normally 
owe their whole origin to just the same causes which prompt 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 101 

men to stone the prophets, are informed by similar spirit. 
You are aware that this is not the first mighty European 
Combination to crush Germany; that United Europe made 
a very furious attempt of that sort some century and a half 
ago, persisted in it Seven Years long, and failed. England 
chanced at that time to be temporarily under the guidance 
of one of nature 's nobles, and, happening to have just war 
of her own on hand at the moment, allied with the German, 
— not much to the joy of the ignoble in her. These Ignoble, 
long definitely in command, have now, to the huge joy of the 
rabble which follow them, and without any British cause 
for war at all, plunged the nation in on the opposite side ; 
determined to help do the job over again, and properly this 
time. Of that other Seven Years ' effort, it was written that 
had the Allies, alias Conspirators, been united, there could 
be no doubt they might have succeeded in crushing the 
One. You have taken much counsel together to remedy the 
fault which then wrecked the attempt, resolved the infamy 
then endeavoured shall be done this time. And that in full 
sight of clearest revelation, by the highest God's Missioned 
of yourselves, what an infamy it was, still is. For this of 
To-day is completely the same thing again in further devel- 
opment. 

But, leaving that awhile, and keeping to reflections 
raised by Magnitude : There is one thing which the mighti- 
ness of this Combination has already brought forcibly home 
to some, and assuredly will bring home to all. Namely, How 
it has raised Germany to the first place in "World 's esteem as 
a Great Power, in the vulgar acceptance of the word great, 
— and possibly in other acceptations. Before this war broke 
out, I think most well-informed, impartial men, the world 
round, would, if asked Which is the Greatest? have an- 
swered The British Empire. Not so now! For Britain 
has made it palpable to all she dare not face Germany alone. 



102 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

Her lavish bidding for Allies, her obsequious truckling for 
them. The repeated nervous utterances of her statesmen the 
days of 'splendid isolation' were gone by, madness now to 
think of standing single. The coward manner of her entry 
into strife, so visibly in league and subtle copartnery, veiled 
under quibbles of Entente, yet holding back, and only 
openly joining in after two mighty were firm fastened on 
the foe. (The German called it *a striking of a man behind 
his back,' when already engaged with odds. It was. A 
thoroughly dastard act. And, moreover, I begin to be 
aweary of Entente, nice sharp-quillets of your law; shall 
speak in what was once called plain English. ) The beseech- 
ing or inciting of every friend she could find, little or big, 
the world over, to help her in pinch. The present procla- 
mation of strait, greatest trial of our strength we have 
ever been put to ; now with two great neighbours to help at 
hand, innumerable and powerful Colonies zealously assist- 
ing, Indian Empire equally; these Colonies, Dependencies, 
with Japs and Portugals, relieving distant strain; huger 
armies, mightier navies, more enormous loans than were 
ever dreamed of raising at home ; — yet the cry Help ! Help ! 
Every Briton, every man that loves his skin, Help ! Help ! 
or we all sink unequal to this frightful contest with — One. 
Surely he must be the Arch-fiend in person ! Add to this 
the conduct of the Allies' armies, all herding together to 
ring the One at bay. The sort of exultation their Peoples 
indulge in. Ha, ha, the Impotent ! For why ? He has not 
proved a very Titan of the Gods to hurl us all heels upper- 
most. — This thing, I say, which the mightiness of your Com- 
bination has revealed is as yet not revealed to but hidden 
from many, though to one at least among you it was quickly 
seen most ominous, indeed fateful ! It is a thing of truly 
'overwhelming' significance, and the meaning of it is cer- 
tain to slowly dawn upon all. As the dust clouds settle, 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 103 

that Great Fact will loom out more and more, grow con- 
tinually in weight of meaning. In a little while, or a longer, 
every civilised nation on the globe, and savage tribe yet 
loyal to you as First, will perceive it ; and draw inferences 
from it. Persist in this war to the bitter end and be de- 
feated, one knows not what fate will befall you. Time for 
recovery may not yet be utterly past. But persist to the 
end, and Victor, "Where are you ? Do you imagine that the 
Victor can alter this? It cannot: This thing is done. 
Victor, you will not have conquered by your own strength ; 
no fairer praise can be to you than what befits the Chief 
Dog of a Pack ; the fallen stag in majesty. Time was when 
you could take two or more at once ; could cry. Come one, 
come all. Now your chivalry is in the mire, and you are 
bondman with and to your * Allies ' ; one of a tribe, a mob, a 
most false coiner 's gang ; confessed no more a self-sufficient, 
and with soul bound in sin. Victor or vanquished, your 
place is gone without return ; nothing save an act in noble- 
ness equal to this in meanness capable of regaining it. So 
much for the Magnitude you glory in. 

Of course, I know what a mightily different colour you 
put on all this ; and a colour put on it is, never a true com- 
plexion. False coiners you are, of more mischievous things 
than stamped metal. For you try to persuade yourselves it 
is a holy league of Righteous Many versus Evil One, — 
raised so to eminence, you may admit, but then such shock- 
ingly bad eminence. That of Milton's Satan scarcely to be 
named with it ; since he stood at the head of Principalities 
and Powers, not singly opposed, was reckoned to have car- 
ried nigh half of heaven along with him. Couldn't now, 
you swear? Well, I have not lived in heaven, cannot say. 
But I did not know the current sublunary races had under- 
gone such conversion lately they could so turn the tables on 
all past generations. Perhaps those of a wider travel could 



104 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

find a precedent, but no mortal record known to me contains 
account of one, though they all teem with accounts of Com- 
binations of reverse character; and the features of those 
reverse resemble the features of yours with such exceeding 
closeness it is difficult to believe they belong to antipolars. 
Holy league of righteous Many to crush One wrong ? Verily ! 
Have you ever considered what that would imply; what a 
tremendous change in the constitution of all human things, 
and wholly transcendent moral development of mankind at 
large you are asserting? Hitherto the fact has so univer- 
sally been a little band of brothers, some small 'company 
of poor men,' warring for the just against huge odds and 
mighty Combinations that even the ideal hopes of the 
noblest have hardly looked for more, unless by such com- 
pany 's final conquest, millennium come. And now, you say, 
all this is changed. Unexpectedly, in sudden sunburst, the 
instant Devil shows his hoof, the myriads gather to the 
raised Standard of Right; tramp beneath it thousandfold, 
contingents from every country, erect, each various soldier, 
in an august, victorious, manhood ; his legions no longer 
multiplex of hue, but all in one known garb, recognisable 
at a glance ; shrunk into a corner ; capable of final bottling 
there. Where, no doubt, they'll fight with the spleen of all 
the under fiends, such being native to them; and, hence, 
your cries for Help ! most justified and noble ? As James 
of Ecclefechan^ said: I don't believe ye. 

Leagues to crush, not to speak of mighty International 
Combinations to do so, actually holy are very rare^ the 
godly usually finding the maintenance of their own king- 
doms a sufficiently arduous task; and internationally they 
are never possible at all except where one Faith has long 
reigned, as in Christendom gone by. When, also, they 
never really are to crush; but to convert, and bring into 

^Carlyle's father, vide ' Eeminiscences. ' 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 105 

the fold : Nothing puts you to shame : Under head of Prin- 
ciple, you lay title even to this; and have for partner in 
the enterprise, as I keep reminding you, the nation which is 
the chosen home and greatest stronghold of all that those 
Principles name Powers of Darkness^ the most inimical to 
what you call cause of humanity and blest progress, profess 
to be fighting for. Your league is to crush, and unholy; 
but the first colour that it was defensive against Aggressor. 
This is the point most tenaciously held and insisted on: 
That Germany was gratuitously bent on war for her own 
aggrandisements' sake. Point necessarily to be held for 
own justification, since without it the whole claim to right- 
eousness flounders helpless. Point to be believed, as an 
article of religious faith, without evidence, infidelity to ask 
for any. Nay, to be believed in despite of all evidence; 
doubt on it a temptation to be overcome by appeal to heaven 
to strengthen frail mortals' back-sliding hearts. Point to 
be iterated and reiterated with that entire fixity of precon- 
clusion which shuts the doors on reason. If we cannot see 
that without eyes (with it might be difficult) no discourse 
can be held with us ; the higher mysteries undemonstrable 
to mere earthly vision. If grace has not been given us to 
know this by the inner light which shines in each soul elect 
of the Lord, then is it clear that His face is hidden from us, 
and we wander deservedly in night, not knowing right hand 
from left. It is a sad fate. Gentlemen, and pitiable surely, 
though I do admit it never fell on the guiltless, and feel 
more and more that to address reason to men in such a 
hapless ease is like to prove a vain deed. Yet ever does 
true inner light admonish: The Many are not all, and: If 
human faculty, endeavour, seem but lost like lightning on 
the Bog of Allen, it is still ever something to keep on. 

Again, then, I say that, even granting your untenable hy- 
pothesis, whereon this war no more stands than the world 



106 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

does on a tortoise, were true, did afford valid ground for 
counter act, the present counter, and Combination for it, 
would remain damned: No evil in the German could ever 
make this just. Whatever the German, this Combination 
against him is malevolent, not benevolent ; essentially, in its 
own intrinsic character, malevolent: Ill-will is the one 
cement that binds it so opposite component races, no two 
alike, together, not in Alliance, but in Conspiracy. Never 
did or could the just form, or enter league as we have seen 
that this was formed and entered into. Observe one curious 
thing, how all this of sacredness, and Cause of Humanity, 
was never heard of till after Britain joined. The Alliance 
between France and Russia had long existed, never reck- 
oned a pure celestial love or compact of angels, even by 
themselves; but when Britain would not let the German 
fight them two without her for a third, lest, Victor, he 
should grow dangerous to herself, — Why, then, at once, she 
swears the thing most godly; opes wide her throat to pro- 
claim the Combine sanctioned by the Almighty, heap every 
term of ignominy upon the single opposite, and urge his 
suppression the most crying need of Man in current age. 
What lineament of a Michael girt and drawing to forbid 
injustice, is there in this ? Had France and Russia fought 
Germany and Austria the struggle might have been tough, 
the mutual rages high, but no combatant had ever risen (or 
sunk) to the bitter, blind, and deadly animosity which 
Britain instantly displayed the moment she stepped in. 
Vindictive hate the nation through, crediting, attributing 
every species of atrocity; the Leaders fanning the mob- 
fury, heedless what foul deed it do, glad of it for their own 
uses, themselves obsessed with the same. Gratuitous and' 
unjustifiable entry into a Foreign Quarrel, done in most 
dastardly manner at the moment of greatest advantage, 
followed for its glorification by a torrent of vile invective, 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 107 

rank abuse; relegation to the enemy to utter perdition, 
exaltation of yourself as Holy Defender ; detraction of him 
as savage miscreant, as over- weening Lucifer and Tyrant of 
the World, chargeable with all guilt, and sole originator of 
boundless desolation. (Why couldn't he do as his Grandam 
bid, and conform to the wholesome laws of her household? 
We'd have tied his bibs with pleasure, and kept him in 
aprons forever.) No just Combination ever exhibited spirit 
of this nature; from the common terrene it is likewise 
absent, as, also from all fair trials of strength, and disputes 
between brave men, which often have to be decided by bat- 
tle, though each in the main esteem the other ; such temper 
of hell is alone found in those who hate the just, and swear 
their cause shall be God's when they know it the devil's. 

Colours put on, never a true complexion. No, never; 
and the colours just the same as before. The old false face 
on the one side, — we cannot say contemplating its now 
ancient picture of the Devil's Head in Phosphorus, — excit- 
ing itself and the world with that artistic production, fresh 
traced and smoky brilliant as in creation's hour. And on 
the other, in all probability, very much the same true face 
as before ; irrecognisable, wholly, as before, to artists and to 
public enraptured with their self -conceived 'portraits.' 
Carlyle bore witness of the German ; also of the Combina- 
tions against him. And nothing can be clearer than that 
his witness of the Combinations does remain true to this 
day; neither has evidence turned up, his witness of the 
German has ceased, in any essential point, to be true. The 
British picture of the German, all the present accusation 
and argument, these things at least are so palpably descend- 
ants of the prior ones, whereof Carlyle gave such undeni- 
able account, that it is impossible to doubt their genera- 
tion. Never did son more perfectly repeat his father's 
character and features in every particular. You enfran- 



108 THE COMBINATION AQAINST GERMANY 

chised who scorn the Past, believe the Present directly be- 
gotten, newborn of a spirit unknown in Dark Ages, you 
object to the paternity? Well, I never said a child or for- 
bear was lawfully begotten ; grant Bastardy to any length, 
and mixed beyond unravelling. Perhaps maternity would 
please you better? "We do here deal with a sort of Life 
which, if not quite immortal, defies all common means of do- 
ing to death. Mother ancient as Nox, shall we say, then, 
and of the like fecundity, ever able to print off anew ; and 
begetter the entity well known as the Father of Lies, equally 
superior to mortal restrictions in generation? He may be 
so ; nathless you will find him in pedigree houses as well as 
upstart. 

In the olden times, especially during and after the Refor- 
mation, Britain and Germany were normally, instinctively, 
at one ; and heroic heads in each intelligently knew that this 
should be. Neither have they ever turned away from this 
union, rather have gone much forward in it. British 
Nation, however, having once thoroughly made up its mind 
that none of that sort should guide it any more, if for a 
while favourable to Germany from negative causes, fear of 
French aggrandisement, has never since drawn toward 
Germany from positive. From the time of the first decided 
emergence of Prussia as the Nation of Deutschland instead 
of Austria, — Nay, from before that decided emergence, and, 
as it were prophetically, from the first notable appearance 
of Prussia on the world-stage as a coherent nation with a 
self -vitality and ownness of initiative, taking a line of her 
own and visibly growing in the favour of heaven ; capable, 
if not betimes cut down, of becoming the Chief in Deutsch- 
land instead of Austria ; — from that earlier date has Britain 
shewn animosity, one of those earthly-causeless hostilities 
and unreasoning repulsions, which have root in man 's soul, 
not in diplomacy or any mundane interest, and which to 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 109 

this hour keeps her on the side she is on: Opposition side. 
It was then that this discrepancy began, and it is so that it 
continues. Not till the Briton had for himself sought shel- 
ter in mendacities did his face grow strange to this brother. 
That his face should then grow strange, become set against 
the Prussian, is no marvel ! For it does lie in the nature of 
man that he, turned shifty, shall chiefly rage at whoso 
remains veridical, shoots up in integrity; and the more so 
the closer of kin. You were shocked at the imagined sug- 
gestion of the Christ of Nations; wholly imagined, for I 
never meant it, or could endure it ; we had enough of thaU 
ere while from your precious Ally ; but, though the degree 
be not comparable, the kind holds true, and this I did and 
do mean, shall have more to say on it before done. 
* There was a venom in those prior Combinations could 
have owed its existence to naught else but the hatred of the 
vicious for the true. Original 'Detestable Project' for par- 
titioning Prussia, throttling her down and preventing 
feared expansion. Is it not amazing what an amount of 
killing this has taken ? Was it not well said to spring from 
the bottomless? Russia alone may at every appearance of 
it into the light of day have been a party to it, the others 
very various, changeful ; yet it sprang, and again and again 
sprang, evidently of a life preternatural. After so long a 
dormancy as to have seemed utterly effaced, dead beyond 
possible resuscitation, it has sprung another time. For, 
however different in hue and form, the Present is essentially 
the same in spirit and aim ; proceeds by the same arguments 
and with the same accusations ; often uses almost identically 
the same words: Constantly have I observed how the cur- 
rent charges against Germany, the character alleged of the 
German, motives and actions attributed to him, in a word, 
the whole of the present Combination's own accounts of 
itself and of the nation it seeks to crush, are little other than 



110 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

paraphrases of those exclaims of your forefathers concern- 
ing Friedrich and his Prussia which are given in Carlyle's 
history. "Which is a thing worth reflecting on. The prior 
allegations and accusations were identically the same as 
those of to-day, they were as universally, as zealously, 'be- 
lieved, ' and as vociferously asserted then as now ; and they 
were totally false, lies utter, absolutely contrary to the 
facts. Friedrich 's first war was voluntary, but just. All 
his others were defensive, forced upon him by iniquitous 
attempts of neighbours to do outrage upon him and his; 
and he showed a most remarkable absence of ambition, re- 
fusing to claim more than his right even after full oppor- 
tunity to claim more had come to him, might fairly have 
been taken advantage of had he gone upon damages pay- 
able. Yet the English called his first act offensive a theft, 
swore all the subsequent wars were provoked by him in the 
hope of new ' successful robberies ' ; outside their own angry 
imaginations and hallucinations, no shadow of a foundation 
existing for this. Treachery and thievery were on all sides 
except his, therefore charged on him. British Doctors of 
State and cultivated classes, with the uncultivated follow- 
ing them in that implicit faith they can hardly help or 
avoid, looked all their lives straight into a contemporary 
Friedrich and his Prussia, and never saw him or it at all ; 
saw nothing there save vain and wicked imaginations of 
their own hearts; exhibited the extremes of vicious igno- 
rance, confirmed platitude, and, wilful perverse in persua- 
sion of their caricature's verisimilitude, exultingly defiled 
themselves in taunt and mock, most sorry wit and sarcasm 
too vulgar impudent for lofty airs to sweeten : All then as) 
now, all now as then. And let me quote directly a word 
of Carlyle 's hereon : ' Ignorance by herself is an awkward 
* lumpish wench ; not yet fallen into vicious courses, nor to 
*be uncharitably treated: but Ignorance and Insolence — 



,THB COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 111 

* these are for certain an unlovely Mother and Bastard! 
*Yes, — and they may depend upon it, the grim Parish- 

* beadles of the Universe are out upon the track of them, and 
'oakum and the correction house are infallible sooner or 
'later!' You can no longer plead ignorance and the vicious 
course is too apparent. Master Winston, Lloyd George, and 
heads of hydra innumerable, consider your own utterances 
in defame of living HohenzoUern ; nor flatter yourselves the 
Universe has no correction house or Beadles to bring you 
to it. 

The Seven Years' effort of United Europe was a thing of 
blackest infamy, and charged all infamy upon its victim; 
held him up for general execration, and got millions of the 
weaker sort to 'innocently' believe that victim worthy of 
damnation, the Allies marshalled Hosts of Heaven versus 
one Satanic: Fact being much nearer Devils' Legions 
swarming round one human. Again the same to-day. 
That old Combine's methods also very similar. Sly, and 
kept from view, professing Entente; and treaties of most 
certain existence perhaps not put on paper. The same 
huge outry of See ! how he provoked the war for evil pur- 
pose of his own, when he would not wait completion of 
plans, refused to stand on the defensive, went on it, and 
once sure of purposed attack, attacked himself betimes. 
The same absurd charge that preparedness for war and 
instant readiness to fight proved wish for it ; so ridiculously 
harped on these hours. The Germans have been preparing 
for years; the Kaiser saw war to be inevitable, and acted 
accordingly: My friends, you seem to be a little ill off for 
evidence, hard put to it to prove your case, when you point 
to these very undeniable facts in such triumphant conclu- 
sive fashion. I never supposed him to be a nose of wax 
that would sit charmed till moment convenient for demo- 
lition was vouchsafed the waiting prayers by heaven. Am- 



112 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

bitious, tricky, changeful, capricious, infirm of temper and 
of purpose; — all to the old tune, each item crops out in 
turn, identical with bygone. 'For Newcastleisms, impious 
Poltrooneries in a Nation do not die ; neither, thank God, do 
Cromwellisms and pious Heroisms.' The same charge of 
diabolism^ atrocity, perfidy; of arch-enemy breaking all 
laws, etc., etc : Which is normal on the part of those them- 
selves guilty of plot. Moreover, the fact of the others' 
going on defence, of his starting the mischief so far as outer 
public can see, and being indisputably the first in overt act, 
is not only seized as excuse, but to souls unveracious be- 
comes excuse and washes out their guilt, so that they can 
after really persuade themselves their consciences are now 
clean — and always were. For mendacious creatures are 
everywhere their own first dupes, self-deluded, pretending 
to themselves motives other than they have or had, and dis- 
guising ill in seeming fair: Catiline conspiracy, acted on 
before fulfilment, shrieks of wanton outrage on peaceable 
good citizens; raises front of injured innocence, and, since 
not proven guilty, believes itself God's darling, prey of 
lawless brute and cunning. Briihls and Ententes find in 
the gentle, modest, Isabel of Measure for Measure, bold 
only in the spirit's moving grace, their most perfect absol- 
ver; restorer of honour bright, reinspirer with Faith and 
Hope, — if not quite Charity ! 

* Our acts did not o 'ertake our bad intent, 

'And must be buried but as an intent 

'That perished by the way: thoughts are no subjects; 

'Intents but merely thoughts. 

'Mariana: Merely, my lord. 

'Duke: Your suits unprofitable, — ' 

Methinks it is ; but yet they do, in their souls, sincerely 
believe the sins themselves by providence escaped have now 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 113 

descended on the head they hoped should feel their heel, — 
shall now, with heaven to sanction. 

Still further, there is always here that phenomenon so 
invariably sequent upon any man who does conspicuously 
act in a vital justice, that of his being instantly judged by 
all and sundry by a standard of morality the judgers 
never dream of applying to themselves or to any who offers 
less title than he to be reckoned upright. Every just man 
has bet this a thousand times, and seen it to be the law 
universally. It is not altogether of shamelessness, nor, 
whatever height it rises to, hideous deed it lead to, a thing 
merely detestable. For it is, of course, essentially an invol- 
untary, unescapable confession by them and confirmation 
of him ; a spontaneous admission, with often a vein of true 
loyalty as yet troubled helpless, contrarious, filled with 
manifold vexations of spirit, but capable of purification. 
Undoubtedly, this is born of sin; all exclaim at real or 
imagined fault in one centred for criticism with simulta- 
neous passing lightly over, as mere peccadillo, act excused 
by necessity, moment's infirmity, or even as commendable 
virtue, treble guilt in the same by whosoever walks orthodox, 
belongs to own party, or stands just ordinary mortal ; and 
in many grows on from bad to worse, the eminently unpar- 
donable ; yet, also in others, it stirs the execrated noble to 
pity, to silent patience and timely aid, prompts him to a 
hopeful ministration, and then indeed Redeemer. If you 
marvel at such reflections, I cannot help it. Friedrich was 
a mocker, sceptic infidel, you say : And those who gnashed 
their teeth upon him most Christian ? "Wide howl of viru- 
lent animosity raged round him, blind and causeless ; yet he 
never answered in the like, nor lost in human brotherhood 
for the bitterest of his cursers : The Reich which joined the 
Combine, put him under Ban of Empire, lives now in one 
fold, staunch for ownest Captain and one common Father- 



114 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

land. Is there not in these facts something more of Chris- 
tian than in your litanies? 

In that Seven Years ' effort, England, chancing by special 
providence to come temporarily under the leadership of an 
heroical man, to whom all noble in her responded^ took side 
with the One. Yet the ignoble in her soon ousted Chatham, 
deserted Ally in foul treasonous manner, and never gave up 
the prior charges ; have since but gone on elaborating them : 
Britain 's present action is a sequel of this, directly descend- 
ed from it ; comes not by discernment of facts on the part of 
the nation or its leaders, but through persistence in baseless 
delusion, inveterate building in own fancy viciously, and a 
deliberate refusal to see or confess aught German as it was 
or as it is. False notions of that character are bad enough 
in any case, for they simply cannot spring in soul that is 
itself true ; but held after fullest exposition of their falsity, 
— exposition made in broadest humanity ; no partisan spirit 
adding fresh false colour by white-wash of the maligned, 
just revelation of him in his natural stature, with all the 
faults and infirmities that were his ; nothing disguised, and 
no magnification of him beyond his actual stature; richly 
equitable in warm as level sympathy with every party; 
clear in sight of the Maligners ' guilt, yet void of every nar- 
row condemnation, cherishing each trait of manhood to be 
found in them ; stably measured everywhere, and forgetful 
of no condoning circumstance; — to hold the false notions 
after this is infinitely worse ; the crime which the bravest, 
gentlest, have ever felt to be most cardinal, chief Mother of 
Iniquity, and blackest proof of Covenant with Hell that 
men can give. 

And, when we look at the condoning circumstances, there 
is one thing not at all the same to-day. Britain has not 
stumbled into this war somnambulantly, driven on by spec- 
tral terrors, and in a stupidity perhaps the most honest in 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 115 

the world ; she has gone into this war very wakefully, and 
with no own cause of war hapless confused with other wars ; 
neither blundered in a stolid honesty, but in an attorney's 
adroitness, lively quick in damned enterprise. Driven on 
by phantasm of terror, may be true enough, the terror real 
and extremely phantasmal, but then the creation of brains 
more vicious than sick. And even had it been otherwise 
one could only answer again as Carlyle long since: 'Our 
'great grandfathers lived in perpetual terror that they 
'would be devoured by France'; (I give it in his words. 
You can substitute 'We live ... by Germany'; etc.) 'that 
'French ambition would overset the Celestial Balance, and 
'proceed next to eat the British Nation. Stand upon your 
'guard then, one would have said: Look to your ships, to 
'your defences, to your industries; to your virtues first of 
'all — ^your virtutes, manhoods, conformities to the Divine 
'Law appointed you; which are the great and indeed sole 
'strength to any Man or Nation! Discipline yourselves, 
'wisely, in all kinds; more and more, till there be no anar- 
' chic fibre left in you. ' ' Unarchic, ' ' disciplined at all points, 
'you might then, I should say, with supreme composure, 
'let France, and the whole world at its back, try what they 
'could do upon you and the unique little Island you are 
' so lucky as to live in 1 ' Just what we have done, you were 
going to interject after the first three injunctions. I grant 
it and rejoice in it ; but the remainder, and major, you have 
not done at all. A pretty anarchy was all abuzz at the 
very instant that you made war; but this particular is 
scarce worth noting in a state so normal. French Ambition 
was real, though perfectly futile, as all such vanities are; 
yet the injunction was : Look to your own island, run not 
diplomatising, fighting abroad in concerns and quarrels not 
yours. German ambition is a Bugaboo of your own crea- 
tion ; but had it too been real the injunction had remained 



116 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

the same. Assuredly, never to run bidding for allies and, 
by subtle copartnery bring war; then, snatching the 
moment for dastardly onslaught, say you had to in honour. 

What evidence does the character of this Combination 
afford of the character of the One combined against ? Take 
me correctly, please. I did not say "What evidence does 
this Combination offer as to the character of the One? 
That is a thing very completely known, a thing which he 
who runs may read — and not credit. More than offered, 
pressed on every comer, beshouted into every corner, but 
a no evidence; a story-teller's figment and lying incoher- 
ency, worthy of no man's regard, except as significant of 
the fabricators. A Bedlamism and a Nursery tale, with 
the difference that tales so told by men have not the inno- 
cence of the nursery, rather the spleenful guile of Newgate. 
"Whoever wishes to know aught of the German, to learn what 
he is, good man or bad, and what sort of either, rests con- 
fidently on the primary assumption that he is bound to be a 
man made more or less in the image of his Maker, like the 
rest of us; sweeps the Combination's (mainly Britain's) 
delirious detractions of him into the gutter, as preliminary 
essential to any sight. Mere envenomed delusions, those; 
perversions, distortions, glaringly incongruous and impos- 
sible, making up a picture like unto none that ever drew 
breath on this planet; absolutely unbelievable by mortal 
still compos mentis. The generation, ready credence of 
which by the British may afford terrible evidence of their 
moral condition ; but which cannot mirror for us one single 
feature of the German. Each healthy soul rejects all that 
instinctively, and not without abhorrence. 

What evidence does the character of this Combination 
afford the Character of the One combined against, is what 
I did say. It may not be possible for man, restricted to 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 117 

negative evidence in this matter, to give any very con- 
clusive answer as to German's character; yet there is no 
question sufficient intellect could deduce his character so. 
And I think it probable that if some higher embodied In- 
telligence than man were suddenly to appear among us out 
of infinity this instant it would, after one careful perusal of 
the British and World's Indictment of Germany, though 
knowing otherwise nothing of the matter, come quickly 
to very definite conclusion the One there execrated was of 
the eminently just. Let us drop speculation and speak 
plain man : It is not in my experience, knowledge, or power 
of veridical conception, that Combination like the present 
has ever, or could ever, come into being except against one 
most distinctly of the juster kind; that accusations, and 
accounts of quarrel, of the nature of those made and given 
by the British, have ever, or could ever be made or given 
unless as contrary to Man or Nation that had the right in 
the quarrel very preponderantly; that no spirit such as 
informs the British versus the German has ever been, or 
could ever be, excited save by the presence in their Protag- 
onist of somewhat that is chiefly human and heroical — ever 
encountering on this earth a deadliness of opposition which 
nothing else can raise. It is a most wild notion, that of the 
myriads swarming to Eight. The German stands alone 
because he has no kin, or none brave enough, and never was 
the Devil without in this world. The wrath of knaves is 
easy kindled, but, alas! seldom do the just rise quickly in 
aid. Had the German had a tithe of the cunning ambition 
you attribute, he had never lacked for company ; many had 
been ready to share peril in the hope of prize, though so 
few for God's sake. You have found this, legions to friend. 

As was the case in the Seven Years' War, the problem 
before Germany is, essentially, Defence, not Conquest. 



118 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

Charge of voluntary war, iniquitously undertaken for ag- 
gressive objects, made by those who had themselves been 
plotting for wanton outrage, and who never hesitated to 
seize any opportunity for aggression that turned up for 
themselves, was as loud and universal then as now; yet 
utterly baseless. It is never difficult to get the Mobs to 
believe such charges; but, with the facts otherwise, their 
unanimity will not profit them or you. You say that 
Germany made war for conquest ; pretend this the basis of 
your own acts, and exult in having checked imagined aim — 
one could not say how many imagined aims, for your minds 
are extremely fertile in that kind. But no word of truth 
comes from you; and the real problem for Germany is 
to-day, as before, defence of her own countries. She gained 
no conquest before, not an inch of territory, or shilling 
of indemnity, much ruin; yet recovered marvellously, and 
manifold accessions of territory, and more important 
things, followed after. You do not now pretend merely 
to wish to check conquest, but to cut down and destroy; 
and this aim of yours, if original vindictive, is greatly 
intensified by a dim perception of the fact that if not 
utterly beaten Germany will be victor, manifold acces- 
sion to her, blight upon and self-wreck to her opposites, 
again sure to follow : Which could by no possibility be the 
case if her act were aggressive and your cause just. Suf- 
ficing check to the aggression were then enough, and no 
good could follow to her or ill to you. Your instinct, that, 
if simply not beaten, Germany will be victor, is true; 
and frightfully betrays you : for it could not be true unless 
Germany were in the right, yourselves in the wrong. A 
nest of pirates needs to be destroyed, you urge ? Granted ! 
But no nest of pirates, after prolonged exhaustive struggle 
with a world of foes, springs up again in native majesty, 
blossoms fairer than before, and widens kingdom in peace ; 



5'HE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 119 

its opposites, in Mighty Combination futile to exterminate 
collapsing namelessly, like creatures whose own limbs fail 
them, Messrs. Churchill & Co., know well that there lies 
their dread : Not supremely victorious we, able to suppress, 
He grows, our Empire crumbles : and it is not an idle fear. 
But alas ! sirs, although in part aware of this, you do not 
guess that an Empire, if once really dependent on any such 
issue, is already past hope in jeopardy; no completest sup- 
pression of another capable of saving it for more than an 
hour. In a little while you shall see them as you wish. 
Nay, by God, I do not wish that. But my loathing of 
your deeds and spirit so grows I am apt to cease endeavour 
to bring reason as a foolishness, perhaps an impiety; to 
say to you : Go on, then : do your utmost ; Ban-dogs of the 
gutter flesh all your fangs in man, so far as able. Tear him 
to pieces, if you can : Death is no ill fate for him. Should 
human breath be wasted in speech to such as ye ? "Why fear 
for him? And is it not affront to him to think he can be 
aided by words addressed to kennel? They are not ad- 
dressed to kennel, and I have hope in Britons still could 
tell you : There 's your home, skulk in, tails down, and no 
more think to voice or lead Our Nation. 

Yes, the problem before Germany is Defence, now as 
before. All credit to her for going on the defensive; for 
being long prepared and ready to meet your machinations, 
subtle Ententes, pretending peace, so long as obedient, 
conformable, to each exsufflicate, arhitrium, which arii- 
triums, of course, grew ever the more exsufflicate, and the 
ne plus ultra, which proved beyond all toleration, far from 
the first; let her hold whatever she can keep or get, in 
counterpoise to colonies snatched defenceless by British 
colonies Britain gave leave to snatch yet would plead 
impotence to compel disgorge again; but the problem re- 
mains defence. If Germany can once more hold her own 



120 THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

against the world, no more is needed of her in this conflict ; 
and, however great the present cost or 'ruin,' she will so 
prove conqueror in a better sort than if Paris, Petrograd 
and London had come under her feet. One knows not yet 
if she can do this ; but, if she can, she will again have given 
such proof of sterling human worth in all kinds as no 
flaming conquest could, more blest for her than shining 
victor. Conqueror has never been her role at all since she 
came on the stage of world history, much less Adept in 
Chicane. No, never those so persistently attributed vanities 
and astucities; but a grand solidity, noble integrity, and 
growth by equitable expansion; each increase well earned 
and worthily maintained. And, able to hold out, should it 
be no more, the sequel is again sure to be rich in all manner 
of increase to her and her sons' sons; in that case, the 
future times will restore all present loss a hundredfold, far 
beyond present forecast. 

So far as it is permissible for man to pray — for what 
impiety to dream the Eternal knows not better than we ! — 
it is my deliberate conviction that every brave man, Briton 
more than any, should pray that Germany may not be de- 
feated in this contest; that each should do whatever he 
can and justly may to prevent such hideous consummation. 

Alone against the "World, she stands just now. It is the 
normal portion of the heroical — man or nation ; and he 
must not rage, but be strong in all humanity, in valour and 
in pity, in severest doom and tenderest forgiveness — must 
do his utmost, yet unreservedly commit the issue to Him 
who guides the battles' storm and whose path is in the 
deep. None rises to his aid, those whose own welfare is 
bound with his dare not venture, and some whose chief 
salvation were in his victory are hot in enmity. The odds 
are huge ; and time was when Briton put his trust in some- 



THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 121 

thing else: Let German now. Mighty Combinations are 
very composite, much liable to split, generally more ter- 
rifying to contemplate than to wrestle with; and, if in 
your own right hands and constant souls lies the only 
certainty, there never is any knowing when or how heaven 
means to send help. Briton, that I speak this to your 
foe! I speak it to our Brother; for, were we true to our- 
selves, none other on earth were so thoroughly our brother. 
Be successful, Briton, in your endeavours to crush him, 
and I do not think I could ever own kin with you more: 
Seldom did Nation put hand to more dark and foul a deed. 
And what hideous cruelty has your horrid obsession made 
you partaker of, chief leader in ! I do not refer to atrocity, 
blood and desolation, slaughter of the innocent, or seeming 
innocent. No, but to the hemming in for destruction of the 
Right Valiant, the seeking to cripple, to thwart, or exter- 
minate, a simple veracious Manhood; in whose arrival at 
royal sway on earth, also, lies the one possibility of saving 
the innocent, preventing unrighteous bloodshed, all other 
mischief whatsoever. 'The whole world risen like a delir- 
'ious Sorcerer's Sabbath round One, against whom, were 

* the truth known, there is no solid complaint, intent to hurl 
'the mountains on him. Go to the theatre and there weep 

* at Tragedy, at the illusory representation of Tragedy, per- 
'suade yourselves of just abhorrence for the villainous, gen- 
'erous sympathy with the noble of soul, victim of knaves' 
'wrath and honesty's cowardice, while in life you vie with 
'each other in cursed execration, exult in the hope of 
'trampling Sole Man under herd's cloven feet' ^ 

^Carlyle (also Wilhelmina) on 'Seven Years' Combination'; in 
different places, and partly in paraphrase here. 



CHAPTER VI 
REAL CAUSES 



VI 

KEAL CAUSES 

PRELIMINARY 

Ostensible Causes are easily dealt with: The reasons 
certain Responsible Entities are pleased to show their so 
loyal and believing, their so suspicious and fractious, yet 
ever very gullible, Publics : Here you have something def- 
inite, already articulated for you; a more or less distinct 
human statement of facts or no facts to work upon. And, 
in either case, true or false, distinct or indistinct, it is the 
human statement which stands as the mark of your criti- 
cism, whether invulnerable thereto or speedily shattered, 
not the infinite deep which forms the subject of your en- 
quiry. Occasionally, the human statement itself refers to 
the infinite, and, though clear, is not limited, as when Crom- 
weU said he warred with Spain because she was Anti- 
Christ: In which case the Ostensible may be one with the 
Real, and as nameless; the uttered statement merely float- 
ing over your battleranks as a symbolical word, all meaning 
attachable to which is left to yourselves, and cannot be 
found except in the deep. Much more usually, however, the 
Ostensible makes no stretchings after the infinite, but is 
prudently rendered to us very definite, sharp in outline, 
cut, dried, and made suitable for universal handling ; care- 
fully prepared for ready intelligibility to meanest capacity, 
and the ending of doubt in one and all ; so that each man, 
the Nation through, asked Why we are at "War ? can answer 
instantly with irrefragible dictum. Some hiccup of a treaty 
infringed (how many yourselves have torn up never breathe 

125 



126 EEAL CAUSES 

of) ; almost anything will do, if, hung up in vacuo, it seem 
to have a logical coherence and no contra be admitted to a 
hearing. Some simple law of Cocker, self-evident and un- 
deniable, with none to ask, Wherein relevant? Or how it 
proves your confident summing up of an infinite complex- 
ity ? If a quasi-religious doxy, whereon men feel they may 
securely stake their salvation, while their property is put 
to hazard, the happier hit. Yet you scarcely need this; 
for it comes by nature where the other is : Perpetual iter- 
ation of the irrefragible dictum will itself bring assurance 
of a righteous infinity fought for, and God to friend. Each 
side, every side, succeeds well enough in working itself up 
in that fashion; and the Ostensible are of little value 
except as indications of their pronouncer 's veracity. Some- 
times they are true, as far as they go; are beautiful and 
wise ; and, then, you may pass insensibly out from them into 
the boundless Real they honestly rest on. When false criti- 
cism is satisfied if she can declare where and how, and has 
then done with them ; but with Eeal Causes you can never 
have done. No insurmountable task to slit a British White 
Paper 'Case' into ribbons, or drive it off as chaff on the 
winds, to trouble no mortal more — were the foetid exhala- 
tions let out in the process once blown away, too! But 
Real Causes are totally beyond man's compass. 

Ranging in a sphere somewhat intermediate between Os- 
tensible and Real Causes, are the objects which the parties 
actually had in eye in going into war. With the true, the 
objects declared are, of course, simply so much of the 
actual objects as it was wise to make public, and nothing 
contradictory; with the knavish, cunning falsehoods con- 
cocted to disguise the actual; but with the mendacious (in 
the worser sense in which the word mendacious is here 
almost always used, namely mendacious of soul rather than 
tongue) subtle conceits, which in fact reveal their actual 



REAL CAUSES 127 

aims nearly as clearly as a true man's word, yet which 
carry their own kin along in unanimous persuasion by per- 
f ectness of accord with a lying spirit abroad in all ; whereof 
those conceits are born, and wherein they gather strength 
through its sweeping response. Thus, if the knavish never 
will, the mendacious never can, tell their objects truthfully, 
the latter do generally tell plainly enough to man who 
marks their discourse, though the precise objects of the 
former cannot be discovered till later days, when secrets 
of statecraft have been unearthed. Still, the Real Causes 
are no more to be found in the specific aims the parties 
actually had than in the accounts of those aims they openly 
rendered to the public; and we do not mean to dwell on 
them. The wwspecific aims, dynamical motives temper spirit, 
run deeper. But Real Causes are a soundless infinite, and 
the utmost man can do is to articulate a little of what he sees 
to have been among the causes, did have share in the 
matter, and went to make up a whole unreportable, un- 
knowable. 

I shall say first, therefore, that this war is fundamentally 
one of Opposition : It originated not in the Will of a Brute, 
but in Enmity to Man. To say that a particular party is 
the cause of a war because without him it had not been is, 
of course, always sheer nonsense. His existence may very 
likely be disturbing to some, extremely unwelcome to them ; 
but he did not create himself, and being had the right to be. 
Each (Man or Nation) is born into this world without will 
of his own in the matter; and, if war result from his 
presence, he is only the cause of it if he have charged 
abroad lawlessly; have, whether arrogantly or cunningly, 
seized upon, or wrought for, what is not his by Eternal's 
decree: For your parchments, if they deny to him what 
is his, the worse for them and for you. But if he have 
simply lived and grown, waxing in might and struggling 



128 EEAL CAUSES 

upward, self -fending, as each as to; impelled onward and 
outward by the forces implanted in him, and in stout 
modesty claimed his due, a wider arena, a greater posses- 
sion ; ever rising in stature, sought fuller expression ; — then, 
if war result, as it almost invariably does, on all manner of 
scales, not he, but those who have disallowed his right, 
sought to hamper and hinder, are the causers of the war. 
Wars often are provoked by the Will of a Brute ; are then 
strictly wars of Assertion. And, in this sense, no just war 
ever is of assertion; for, if just, the demands should have 
been acceded to without battle, the onus on whoso refused 
them. But wars are at least as often counters to the Voli- 
tion of Man, are then wars of Opposition; informed by a 
spirit, carried on with a virulence, never found in the 
others. As those of Assertion have their root in some form 
of Lust, so these in some form of Enmity; the perennial 
attempt of the world to suppress whatever springs direct 
from the great heart of nature, lives not by its formulas. 
That is what I mean by a war of Opposition : a war brought 
about by the endeavours of men to forbid another his right ; 
in great instance, individual or national, always caused by 
the deep-seated inveterate hostility of men to what is nobler 
and more human than themselves, certain to be in them if 
the loyalty and reverence which ought to be is not. And 
I say that this war is one of that genus ; genus which, as- 
suredly has many species. You say, it is not, that it was 
caused by the Will of a Brute, whose lusts were long evi- 
dent to you and private intentions known. Then why did 
you not straightforwardly forbid the Brute his lusts ; openly 
enter into express alliance with France for defence of her 
if attacked without provocation? On your hypothesis, 
this was the only honest course for you, if you meddled at 
all. Instead of this, you, with endless painstaking, so 
arranged matters that, when the critical moment arrived, 



REAL CAUSES 129 

you could say to Germany, in pretence of impartiality and 
free-hand: You may fight France, provided you conform 
to all our conditions of handicap to you and swear to 
inflict no incurable cripplement upon her, nor gain the 
least good to yourself: On these terms, our royal equity 
to you and magnanimous protection of France against 
your greater power may be pleased to see the pair of you 
let blood and mutually exhausted to no purpose : No inter- 
est of ours will then be touched, and so we give law for the 
combat in righteousness. That is the plain English of 
your once thought glorious henceforth known notorious 
White Paper ' Case. ' A thing absolutely infamous ; essen- 
tially a Machiavellian ruse, and if consciously so perhaps 
the cleaner. You sodden wretches, you think yourselves 
annulled of sin because you hoped the critical moment 
would never come, sincerely did not wish it to come ; you 
actually imagine that this converts your sordid machina- 
tions into a heavenly wisdom. No Constable of the Al- 
mighty missioned to preserve peace, forbid lust, goes to 
work in that fashion, if many a Night Poacher does. Very 
certainly a war of Opposition; even by your own Osten- 
sible, visibly arising out of Enmity ; much plotting to pre- 
vent freedom of act, and trap laid too, well baited in 
secrecy. You hoped the mouse would not enter ; did all in 
precaution merely; do really believe that since you did 
not want the mouse to enter regions where the trap was 
situate you are absolved of guilt in plot. I cannot follow 
you through all those labyrinths; they are too intricate — 
involved and far removed from light of day. Perchance 
it was no mouse, and bait did not attract ; but trap demol- 
ished by paw of somewhat mightier lord of forest and 
plain than you had reckoned with. 

"War originating in Enmity to Man without an if. How 
far, and, if you like, whether, that Enmity was plotting for 



130 EEAL CAUSES 

aggressive act it is not possible for the exoteric to say, 
not probable that the outer public will know in our life- 
time. Manifold indications point to the existence of such 
plotting; to the discovery of it by Germany; and to the 
cognizance of it by Britain, with refusal on her part to defi- 
nitely herself engage in it, but with grant of unlawful cover 
to those who were engaged in it, and abundant assurance 
to them that they should not lack her assistance in upshot 
if they took the right course to secure it. But speech of 
these things is for a later date, when the secrets of State- 
craft have been laid open, can be followed in their true 
sequences ; present exclaims at real or imagined revelations . 
of items here and there mere street noises and darkening 
of counsel by words without wisdom. Not the practices of 
the Enmity are our concern, but the Enmity itself. Op- 
position to Germany, innate in the British, the Real Cause 
of their going to war with that nation: Which we may 
divide into three: British Jealousy of Germany's increas- 
ing power: Trial of Strength No. 1. British constitutional 
abhorrence of all actual Sovereignty, existent in Germany 
alone of nations : Democracy versus Autocracy No. 2. Brit- 
ish saturation with Make-believe, faith only in Transparent 
Humbug, fearing and detesting an unequivocal Manhood 
that does 7iot believe truth dangerous, dares by what it 
knows: Which Manhood, if not found in Germany, where 
found? Mendacity versus Veracity No. 3. But, although 
sections of those titles will occur, it is not my intention to 
divide this, the main chapter of this book, into those three 
sections only, but also into others subsidiary. For these 
elements are simultaneous, completely interpenetrate each 
other, and run through all; in the matter before us, they 
have such a co-existence, absolute interdependence, that, 
though so far as separable they may for greater clearness 



REAL CAUSES 131 

be spoken of separately, they are properly not separable 
but found everywhere. 

The Real Causes of the war are unfathomable, indeed! 
Our part to look into their deep and tell of elements cer- 
tainly there, among others, visible and invisible to us. And 
though the above may foreshadow what is to follow, yet 
know well that nothing linear, circumscribed, can be meet 
for subject so shoreless. The Real Causes of any war are 
as deep as Original Sin, said Carlyle; yet permissible, a 
duty for man to see what he can, and tell part. So long 
as he never forget that he sees but a hand-breadth, can 
only declare a few items out of innumerable; none of 
which are fixed, detached, are really 'items' at all, but 
indissoluble parts of an infinite and fluent whole totally 
transcending any power of his to guess the meaning of. 



TRIAL OF STRENGTH 

Nothing that the British have articulated, do openly 
profess, as justification for their war on Germany does 
justify it at all; but we spoke at the commencement of 
instinctive biases possibly just, later of claims valid in 
Rivalry's lists. Well, perhaps of all questions the British 
are consciously fighting to determine, the simple, primitive, 
one of: Morality apart, which of us two is the stronger? 
is the most respectable. They are rather shy of asserting 
this issue nakedly, but it is very consciously present in 
them ; properly the one common bond to which all opinions 
own allegiance. And, were it genuine, I too might own 
allegiance ; should not be shy of confessing it a very con- 
siderable, perennial, and inevitable element in disputes 



132 REAL CAUSES 

between Nations, however sorry that they should need to 
draw sword to decide the answer. Among the majority 
of the more sterling of the actual fighters, I should suppose 
it to form the staple of resolution, a bottom to which all 
thoughts revert for the silencing of doubt ; or even, to the 
sterling, the sole ground capable of yielding solid foothold ; 
the rest morass, vacuity, and conflicting shrieks hysterical 
for guiding counsel. The valiant and truly worthy of your 
Admirals, Generals, soldiers and sailors of every rank, 
they are not in their heart of hearts fighting for your White 
Paper 'Case,' for championship of a Belgium would not 
reason, for protection of a France would not keep out of 
mischief, to give opportunity to a nescient Russia to wreak 
havoc in the homes of their own light-loving kindred, to sat- 
isfy a Westminster Cockpit's malignity to a just and noble 
Chief of Men, such as themselves would serve in grateful 
loyalty were his like but king of themselves instead of 
their — foes by your cozenage, brothers in nature's fact. 
No, not for these things are the valiant and more worthy of 
them fighting; it is not the thought of these things that 
steels their hearts, and lends force to their arms : They are 
fighting for the maintenance of Britain's power, for their 
country in what they have been taught was her day of 
peril; and, in their better consciousness, I say deliberately 
in their better consciousness, for practically nothing else 
but this — and every stroke they so deliver, every deed, 
military, administrative, what you will, the Empire so 
achieves, does go to say and to make good : Despite of all, 
there's yet that in us which the heavens still sanction. Our 
guilt may be terrible, and the penalties to be paid for it 
dire, but it has not yet merited the death sentence for us, 
or sunk us beyond recovery. Yea ; and this we will main- 
tain even against him we have most foully wronged, should 
his wrath pass measure and seek our destruction as some 



REAL CAUSES 133 

among us have sought his. Of this they are by no means 
conscious ; it is a dumb instinctive matter, which true seer 
would discern and lead out to another sort of victory than 
any you are seeking. Many a soldier, sailor, citizen, 
battling and working resolvedly in faith that it is for his 
country 's sake, you may have ; in unguessed fact, battling 
and working, living and being, to prove what of virtue 
there yet is in Britons, silently entering this on the credit 
side for Auditor Fate to compare with the debit vice when 
it comes to decide Bankrupt or Solvent? Is there credit 
enough to pay the debt and yet live; or have your sins 
brought you to judgment? God knows, not I. But this 
I know, that no heroical man seeing and understanding the 
springs of this war and fighting in it as in the eye of the 
Eternal is in your ranks at all, or in those of your Allies. 
In the ranks opposed to you there may or may not be such, 
but in yours there cannot be ; not in army, navy, or cabinet, 
neither in camp nor in council hall is there one such possible 
to you ; if there be any that might have become such, they 
have either turned to folly or are in cloud and half-hearted, 
reverting merely to that primitive for such satisfaction 
as they can find in it. None lucent with Intelligence of 
the Highest cries Forward ! to you, nor could cry Forward ! 
to you in this enterprise; but Back! Repent! Confess an 
infamy ! and, where this is true, simplicity 's faith can never 
long continue honest, simplicity remain at all. Alas, I 
fear the majority of your actual fighters, too, do supple 
their consciences with the baseless pleas you provide for 
that object; though none sterling could swallow them, not 
even taken in the lump, at one determined gulp, and to 
have done with questionable matter: It is not the practice 
of the sterling to silence conscience, or accept a colour for; 
assurance. 
Britain or Germany to be uppermost ? Must one or both 



134 REAL CAUSES 

go down? Can either, or can both, survive, to lead the 
Onward March of Man, singly, or in harmony as Brethren 
of One Soul? Ah me! Vast Issues here indeed! And 
sometimes gleams of a Divine Hope through all the horror. 
You are not conscious of those more ominous and more 
glorious, only of the Which of us Two is the stronger? 
Were it possible, which it is not, to separate that element 
from others, I should say nothing in regard to it. Had 
that primitive been the main or true cause of the war, I 
should have remained mute for the Event ; feeling that, once 
you had put it to trial by force, you would have to fight it 
through, since you could not or would not do better. The 
question is so huge, enormous in sequel, that all else set 
forth for reason of war, or consciously in you, shrinks into 
nothing when put beside this ; so deep and so far-reaching 
that it is more than enough to modify all else, it is enough 
to sweep all else into comparative insignificance. The 
answer is determinable by the totality of virtue and vice 
in you that no particular good to your credit or crime yon 
are guilty of seems worth specifying. And, if these things 
are true of the mere wrestle to overthrow and question 
Which shall be uppermost? much more are they true of 
that other far blesseder issue : Reunion in a mutual devoted- 
ness: Whereof I do not yet entirely despair. But have, 
meantime, to enforce again upon you that the simple Trial 
of Strength, uncombined with worthier or baser elements, 
is not present here ; that the question Which of us Two is 
the stronger ? cannot be honestly put unless the conditions 
of combat are fair: The answer may often be got whatever 
the conditions of combat, and sometimes those conditions 
are alone sufficient to give the answer. 

'Romans have gone clean out, Britons have come in': It 
is not long (in such reckonings) since this was written. 
And, if you asked me: When, in World-history, was that 



REAL CAUSES 135 

matter of Supremacy ever settled without battle ? I should 
have to answer, sadly: Never, that I am aware of. Could 
also answer : Though trials of strength be constantly made 
wherein both wrestlers have high merit and neither is 
humanly blameworthy for wrestling, heaven crowns the 
victor despite cruel deed, still pity goes to the vanquished, 
yet I know of no instance wherein the possessor of an al- 
ready achieved and "World Supremacy entered war from 
fear of competitor and did not in sequel, whether successful 
against the rival or not, lose that Supremacy, — certainly 
never if he crushed his opponent by foreign aid. For, though 
we said. Morality apart. Morality is not apart; it is most 
all-permeating, however latent. And for all mere Trials 
of Strength the heavens will crown the victor in, a certain 
frankness is quite essential. There your thought must be 
to crush him in an equal force (true sword to sword), not 
potch at him some way: or wrath or craft may get him. 
If your honour cease to have in it that emulation it was 
wont to have, your honour's gone. Supremacy death- 
stricken. 

One fully admits how each has to fight and prove his 
title; gives large allowance to Rivalry among the unintel- 
ligent, knows its permanent prevalence as element in almost 
all mortal strivings. But Rivalry is only pardonable to the 
unintelligent, and, honest rivalry is always generous, man- 
ful, however short. A mournful enough sight it may be to 
see two brave men fighting one another to prove which is 
best man (often one slain, the other wounded, ere such 
'proof is forthcoming), instead of fighting side by side 
against the sons of darkness; so quickly and much more 
thoroughly discovering which is better man, in grateful 
recognition and mutual helpfulness. But the sinking into 
plot, conspiracy, yet worse the taking lead in mighty com- 
bination to suppress Competitor, is itself at once an unmis- 



136 EEAL CAUSES 

takable confession of inferiority, always ruinous to such 
Ringleader, if you wait long enougli. No lordly Patron of 
the Less, lending aid through envy and to get it, but may 
indeed sun himself superior in their ready adulation; yet 
forfeits man's esteem the while, and seldom is it that he 
ever more again commands respect. Yes, Sirs^ one fully 
admits the common need of each to fight for his right ; hon- 
est rivalry an earthly ground to stand on, if little celestial. 
But shall Welcome of Peer never be possible, then? Al- 
ways, when the New Power rises toward equality with a 
Prior-existent, threatens to become the greater, the two 
must go to war and one destroy the other. I am sorry 
to hear you say so : You have expressed that conviction in 
you more conclusively than words could. I do not believe 
it is forever bound to be so, however well I may know 
it to be usual. It may be that it was and remains beyond 
you to do otherwise; but it is not beyond man, and much 
otherwise was offered to, sought of, you in the present 
instance. You had no eye for it ; pride-blinded and jealous, 
fearful, you not merely in arrogance sniffed at the priceless, 
but created for your solace, his bane, a malignant carica- 
ture of the Peer, heaped every term of ignominy upon him. 
Nay, then, is it too plain 'tis you that are not his Peer. 
And so is it ever: The New does not seek the Trial; but 
the Old, by repeated thwart, petty annoyance, a long 
continued course of conduct informed by Jealousy, forces 
it sooner or later. Neither does that mean passion ever 
trust to fair trial, as Britain conspicuously has not here. 
"Whatever the War's result, British Statesmen, with too 
big a following in every part of the Empire, have already 
trumpeted to the whole earth they did not and do not 
reckon Britain Germany's match. There is only one way 
Britain could prove herself belied in this : And a madman's 
dream to think she will seek it ? I am afraid so. 



REAL CAUSES 137 

That Germany's power lias been steadily increasing for 
generations past, has in the last few generations increased 
enormously, is a fact undeniable as the sun at noonday. 
And shall we say something similar? Perhaps not yet at 
full meridian glory, still ascending and, though shrouded 
in storm cloud awhile, to shine out anew with a long 
course yet to run^ giving grace to the earth, strength to 
the children of men. Likewise is it a fact undeniable 
as — as what? Must I say as the murk of mid-night and 
the laugh of hyenas? that if Britain could not or would 
not give Germany the peer's welcome, fair soul to soul, 
rejoicing in a Man and thanking God for fellow labourer, 
then War between the two was inevitable. The war has 
come. You say you went into it because of meditated 
aggression on the part of Germany. I say, say without any 
shadow of Dubiety, in as thorough a conviction, as complete 
a Certainty as man can have, that you went into it, had 
subtly provoked or countenanced it, from Jealousy of Ger- 
many 's power, and in a determination to forbid any further 
increase to that power. For the things we have next to 
touch on, successively or simultaneously, in relation to this 
Trial of Strength element, are: The fact of Germany's 
increased power j how this has come by equitable Expan- 
sion, true Growth, not by Aggression. What ground there 
is to believe her temper now aggressive. The British charge 
that it is so: a venomous accusation, springing from jeal- 
ousy. Mutual humour of the two Nations to each other. 
The Inevitability of the War : why or how inevitable, if so. 
Take the Fact of Increase first; and gain cheerfulness by 
a moment spent in daylight, if plunge in dusk we must. 

Said Goethe, or quoted he: The dear old Holy Eomish 
Reich, how does it hold together? It is a reflection of im- 
mense significance to me that Germany is the only Euro- 
pean Nation which has sprung fresh in modern times; not 



138 REAL CAUSES 

merely lasted out of mediaeval, or broken loose in revolu- 
tionary earthquakes, but, still rooting in the divine of the 
past, has survived the earthquakes without loss of that and 
sprung fresh in a vitality of To-day. In long past times 
Deutsehland was a glorious unity and Germany verily a 
Nation. Thereafter fell internecine ; went mouldering and 
crumbling down; became a 'Wigged Mendacity,' manhood 
in danger of perishing, poisoned by effluvias from the dead 
unburied; yet never, as a people, abandoned sobriety, be- 
came infected with any active malignancy, nor rejected 
the Godlike, however terribly in need of it. And before 
the Reich 's decadence arrived at consummation little Prus- 
sia proved she had kept true, was a Veracity with no more 
Wig than suited head, could hold her own against the 
world; did so become the saviour of Germany at large: 
Which, on signal of new common danger, most wanton, 
coalesced with her, thus forming present Germany; once 
more a Mighty Power based not on the rotten extinct 
nor on glass-cased preservations of Humbug kowtowed to 
for form and believed saving arks once rendered impotent 
transparent, neither on atheistic anarchy nor its cherished 
faiths, but on solid earth not shut to heaven, and with 
beliefs which are true, capable of infinite expansion, ascen- 
sion. It is a thing of immense moment this that Germany 
has sprung in a fresh Vitality of To-day ; and the political 
power, coherency, is only the outcome of a far more 
precious spiritual, which was by no means confined to 
Prussia but spread through all the states. In the whole of 
this there was no Aggression. Prussia's own growth was 
healthy expansion; she seized but what was her right, 
acquired but what was fairly and beneficently hers in the 
circumstances; she did not conquer, subject, or cozen the 
other States: That union was one of true brotherhood; an 
open, fortunate, most happy forming into a confessed Polit- 



REAL CAUSES 139 

ical Unity what was already one in soul. And since this 
grateful Reunion, spontaneous flowing into one, so long the 
hope and almost the despair of every noble German, there 
has been no Aggression. A vast accumulation of force si- 
lently going on very probably; force needing outlet, not 
seeking it by unjust channels, and for you, if you took 
upon yourselves to incessantly forbid the outlet, saying, 
as if God of this world. Hitherto and no further, — ! I 
know of no national records cleaner of wrongful aggres- 
sions, unjust encroachments than Germany's. If she be en- 
tirely guiltless there, she is indeed the Christ of Nations. Of 
those now leagued against her, how many not hundredfold 
the guiltier? Up to the present, Germany has eminently 
grown by natural development, fair and free expansion, 
the reward of heaven for Desert. Great has been her in- 
crease, and that Increase has been blessed : a thing for every 
just man to rejoice in ; none brave, and himself growing in 
Omnipotence-favour, to fear; knaves and ill- workers alone 
to tremble at, seek to cut back or hinder from further. 

That Germany has not been an aggressive, an unjustly 
grasping or offensively militant nation till now, is a fact 
definitely ascertainable ; and no ground for belief that she 
now is so has ever come before my notice ; neither is it for 
an instant credible to me that any war by Germany not 
felt by him to be inevitable, necessary for his country's 
honour, safety, or well-being, would ever have been sanc- 
tioned by her present Kaiser. If you say of a man one has 
known to be hitherto of a just and constant soul that he 
has turned into diabolical workings, nobody can, on the 
moment, prove you lie. The instinct of Man may, certainly, 
be very prompt to give you the lie, should he deem your 
scurrilous insinuations worthy of notice. What then if 
you have always said it? If you say of a nation, this 
subtle leopard has changed its spots; it is no longer the 



140 EEAL CAUSES 

same at all; a clique of evil-minded persons are riding it. 
Why that last is unhappily a far from impossible predica- 
ment. But it is for you who make the assertion to bring 
the proof, and it will require to be very satisfying — which, 
surely, in a way, it is. If you can do nothing save charge 
malign intention, who is going to listen to you ? Too many, 
yet sum prefaced with the minus sign. But, as a matter 
of fact, you do not in the least say that Germany has 
changed: Your argument remains that she still is what 
she never was. Had the assertion of present aggressive 
temper been made by men full of a loving recognition of 
the unaggressive Germany of hitherto, stable in true in- 
sight into German character, equal esteem and honour of it ; 
sorrowfully, as in discernment of new fact ; — the assertion 
would have been worthy of most serious attention, earnest 
enquiry into its truth: We have heard nothing distantly 
resembling this. What we have heard is bitter imputation 
of ill motive, to be believed despite of all assurance and in 
the teeth of evidence ; made by men devoid of discernment 
of facts new or ancient ; mere repetitions of old imputations 
persistently accredited by them though long proved false, 
and fancy's buildings plucking on their hateful lives: No 
particle of which can offer smallest ground for belief in 
aggressive temper in Germany at present one jot more 
than in the past; significant, fatally significant, of the 
maligners alone, not of the Man and Nation maligned. 

Verily, no evidence that Germany had aggressive inten- 
tion in this war has been forthcoming. Whether she in fact 
did or did not have it, the British allegations that she had 
it are of no validity for proof that she had it, and are 
sweeping proof of the character and motives of the allegers. 
I repeat: No just man, convinced of evil in another, ever 
asserted the existence of that evil in manner remotely re- 
sembling current British defamation of Germany, or took 



REAL CAUSES 141 

such methods of counteracting evil as the British have 
taken against Germany. This attempt to justify the join- 
ing in an extraneous war by a plea of future aggression 
meditated is itself curious^ perhaps unparalleled ; palpably 
some part of the conjugation of your Ally's notorious verU 
Suspect, and itself highly suspect. If we may not call it 
a barefaced falsity, — for I have never known you tell a 
naked lie, any more than a simple truth. Taking much 
pride indeed in things easily seen through, yet face invar- 
iably veiled. Apparently in some thought that, should you 
show your countenance uncovered, its god's brightness 
would be unbearable to mortal eyes? No Medusa's head 
turn hearts to stone — and possibly to steel? Nor foul 
Duessa stript to shame cause every eye to turn away, pained 
with unbearable of another kind? Why, then, one of the 
flimsiest pretexts ever set up ; transparent veils very clearly 
revealing true motive a malignant Jealousy glad to seize 
opportunity, however mean, to damage a dreaded rival. 
Most utterly is that plea, are all your pleas, mere charges 
unsupported ; attributions of evil purpose, I cannot say so 
much made for private ends, the lesser crime^ as believed in 
damnation of soul. Those Creatures of the Mob called 
British Statesmen were not, as secret knaves had been, hard 
put to it to make up their 'Case'; they freely offered as 
their ' Case ' what their workings had brought, confident of 
the acceptance it instantly met ; though to each earnest man 
visibly a thing of tinsel, a most shocking horror, affirming 
much past deed of darkness as well as calling on the nation 
for a further capital. A 'Case' which neither came nor 
found acceptance by any complexion of facts, stood in the 
least contact with facts. A 'Case' which came and found 
acceptance by humour long prevalent in the British, habit- 
ual there for generations past. 

Here, I must anew emphasise how completely the current 



142 EEAL CAUSES 

exclaim at Germany, the Combination against her, is a 
repetition of the earlier. Ponder the circumstance, you 
may marvel whence the British charges came from, how 
they were born. The answer is, they were not born but 
now; these whelps of hell-gate now aravening on earth 
were littered lang syne; they have not even grown consid- 
erably; in act, in bay and physiognomy these are just the 
self-same dogs of old, so long familiar, intimately known. 
Gaze into the daylight realm of Fact, you stand amazed, 
in vain enquiring How? Why? Whence? Glance into 
the record kept of foul Imagination's Cavern underground, 
and your search is swiftly satisfied thence, therefore, so. 
Compare that ugly brood, all teeming there, with the troop 
abroad this hour! Keckon them over one by one, they'll 
answer to the RoU-Call in your hand. Ah, sirs, if nothing 
in Germany's deed gave ground for your rabid outburst, 
onslaught vindictive, malicious as dastard, we can be in no 
doubt whence that outburst, onslaught, came from. Turn 
to Carlyle's 'History of Frederick the Great' and you 
may find the whole of your present iniquitous obsession told 
over before. I could with ease fill pages here with manifold 
excerpts from that grand Bible; wherein scarcely a word 
would need change to leave them in their royalty as accu- 
rately descriptive of German, Anti-German, deeds temper, 
spirit, and even entanglement of situation, To-day as of 
Yesterday. Strangest of all is that last, the similarity of 
situation. Look at outward European conditions, clash 
of interests, solid ground for armed debate, you can see 
nothing out of which this War in the West could have 
arisen. Turn to that living Record of the Past and you 
find every feature forestalled; know that the war had 
origin in Anti-German humour. Elemental Repugnance. 
It is not merely a family likeness, an occasional resem- 
blance, a trait or two here and there, that exists between 



REAL CAUSES 143 

the present outburst and the past; the present outburst is 
identically the same old song to the same old tune with 
hardly a variation. Everything now alleged of the German, 
everything imputed to him, was alleged and imputed before 
without the slightest foundation in fact ; the furor of Man- 
kind against him was fully as high, unanimous; men's 
concurrence in defamation of him, their determination to 
cut him down, as overwhelming, venomous in would-be 
righteousness : And their attempts upon him were void of 
justice, their clamours at him baseless; had no basis save 
their own Jealousies, Greeds, and deadly Enmity in 
common. That Enmity has not sought Lethe's healing 
stream, has lain asteep in Phlegethon for quicken of spent 
vigour, poured Cocytus again on earth, and is Real Cause 
of War in the "West to-day — with the East it is different. 
Moreover, it is chiefly Britain that is guilty of this resur- 
rection of the known damned, despite, perhaps to spite. 
The Briton who exorcised the Brood of Hell for her, and 
left her free, in unsealed vision, opened soul, to grasp the 
Brother's hand. No use to cry: The War was there before 
she entered it! Without her cover, neither France nor 
Russia had mined by half so well; without the practical 
certainty of her armed support, neither had forced conclu- 
sion: certainly not France. The British Lion owns no 
harness; and Island Ape has Parliament to reckon with, 
dare not seal to such a bond. Yet cunning may be matched 
with further cunning; and, unless that Wily Foe consent 
to fight you on impossible terms — ! You know we're 
staunch. For thus shall our consciences be clean, our 
People willing in the day of our Power — Methinks it was 
something Ape that rode more fox than lion. 

Yes, Britain owes her involution in this war to her own 
inveterate humour toward Germany; and, in view of it, 
one can be at no loss to know whence the war sprung, 



144 REAL CAUSES 

Like all that really takes possession of man's soul, to drive 
him along reckless of cost, it is altogether elemental; de- 
pends on no mundane interest but emanates from the 
primary passions of man, his spontaneous Affinities, Re- 
pugnances. Among the namable, it is the Chief Cause of 
the War. The sources of it run very deep ; and you cannot 
know the Present without the Past. Just now we are more 
or less restricted to what in it tends to evoke Trial of 
Strength; — not necessarily true sword to sword, rather 
ready for any potch behind the scenes and trust that virtu- 
ous face is such none dare impeach, or doubt of righteous- 
ness. But, if the fair and equal Foe is not now for you, this 
came by failure in the fair and equal Friend demanded, 
yea, besought. Can you no more meet a man then ? Have 
pleasure in flatterers, toadies to your Greatness ; in Tribes 
of the Less alone find comfortable company ? Tou are Sole 
Lord ; if suave in gracious condescension, know no Equal ? 
At first, perchance, it was not that your arrogance could 
not brook one, but that you nowhere found one: "When 
whispered of, you sniffed incredulous; then hardened in 
indifference; have run the course; and sunk, at last, to 
vicious animus, still trying to lord it superior honest yet 
betraying envy's malice and all the hideous workings in- 
separable. Do I need to remind you how common a con- 
summation this is ; how many times the world has seen it — 
and its fate ? 

I could have much to say of British humour toward 
Germany, perhaps still more of German toward Britain; 
and, in the few words here permissible, shall refer not to 
the tempers of war-time or aught provoked by political 
opposition, but to the constant attitudes of each to other in 
times of peace; the deeper roots of these, their leading 
characteristics. Go back a bit, the British humour toward 
Germany was, in the main, one of lofty indifference with- 



REAL CAUSES 145 

out hostility. Lofty indifference is no good attitude for 
one nation to have toward another, and I never knew it 
unaecentuated by attempt at contempt; but, at first, it 
would have quite pooh-poohed the least suggestion of an- 
imosity, and in a native courtesy have instantly checked 
all tone of slight if you breathed a commendation. Readily 
indulgent to your enthusiasm: Oh, yes, he may be a very 
good fellow; no doubt he is, of course he is. And, of 
course, your courtesy would not offend by too much insist- 
ence on matter so evidently interesting to one party only. 
No desire to learn for himself what the other was could be 
awakened in him. By all means, let who will amuse himself 
in such a quest; to me most foisonless: Who cares? And 
away from importunity, relapsed from possibility's allow- 
ance into confirmed prejudgment of the other's nothing- 
ness and dullard quality. This, I reckon, is true picture 
of British national attitude toward the German at the 
beginning of last century. Carlyle's, indeed, then formed 
a total exception, surpassing, in this relation, anything in 
the German, and went on increasing while his life lasted; 
but it stood alone and the national answer to it was pretty 
much as above, — at first, till the indulgence given thought 
his insistence lacking in courtesy. Alas, the nation has not 
made his wisdom its, as the Germans have the wisdom of 
their God's messengers. Nathless, one doubts not there 
are numbers of the British who have, each according to 
ability. Would they could show themselves this hour in 
united number sufficient ! But it was never, in the nature 
of things, possible that that earlier humour of mere Indif- 
ference should continue. The Peer had made his appear- 
ance, and, in the neglect of welcome, passive disallowance 
was bound to turn to active; much more after convincing 
declaration, in your midst, of his existence and true quality. 
Carelessness to learn what he was, then, inevitably gave 



146 EEAL CAUSES i 

place to an obstinate refusal to learn what lie was, to admit 
what he was, and an ever-increasing tendency to belie and 
malign him, till in our young generation it had become a 
rarity to hear the word German pronounced without some 
term or intonation betokening contumely, vulgar contempt : 
To the British of these latter decades, the German has 
seemed made but to breathe upon. 

Glance, similarly, over the stages of German humour to 
Britain: You find in the earlier a loyal admiration, rec- 
ognition, with an open confession of superiority in the 
Briton which has often made me tremble, knowing how in 
this world of God's making the sceptre passes to Modesty, 
and worth diffident shall step forth in majesty assured. 
Friedrich, wishing to eulogise a character of Voltaire's 
creation, can find no higher praise than 'one feels he is 
either a Roman or an Englishman. ' Royal Goethe, German 
to the bone and devout in noblest patriotism, deliberately 
makes his Wilhelm Meister say: 'You do me too much 
honour when you take me for an Englishman, I am but a 
German.' Conceive like words to these from any British 
king or writer ! You cannot : The same very easily, I fear. 
In Richter, too, what a loving appreciation of Britain! 
patient in hope of reciprocity, and without shadow of 
blame that as yet it was not. We can wait; we can do 
without it; we will not wrong the Briton with a thought 
that given time he'll fail to meet us. A genuine intimacy 
one-sided; a sportful, trustful fullness of knowledge of 
the other, with a just self-consciousness of being his Mate, 
together with a clear perception that the other as yet knew 
not him; a contented waiting till he should, and satisfac- 
tion enough meantime in self -worth giving all other worth 
its due; wonderful to see. Very remarkable phenomena! 
The Germans of that day knew the British through and 
through in a manner, though the Britons knew not them. 



REAL CAUSES 147 

They gratefully acknowledged vast debt to British Genius ; 
reverently drew near to that Genius and made it their 
study; generously emulated it; possessed it in soul, and 
made what in it was suitable for them their own also. 0; 
Britons, if this had met the reception from you that it 
merited from you — ! But, meeting the reception it did, 
could it either continue? Not possibly. No; not in the 
case of some wisest, noblest, most long-suffering man born 
German could it have continued. Such had still prayed 
and hoped, continued to cherish the noble of past and 
contemporary Britain, but seeing the course she was pur- 
suing in and for herself could have no longer pointed to 
her for moral inspiration, rather it may be warned his 
people against her as Sink of Mendacity; and in the ever- 
growing persistent British humour to his country had seen 
grave menace, calling on him to prepare all German sons 
of men for battle, if it could not be avoided: Since thus 
with a supreme of men born German, a second Goethe or 
Carlyle, how with others? Do you think your cause is 
bettered because the Germans have not all been demigods; 
and earthly Host of the Just numbered many a cur foaming 
at lip? Man's strength is surely sorely weakened by all 
infirmity; but the Justice of his Cause is not reversed 
thereby, not even if the infirmity bring him to the dust. 

Before touching expressly on the Inevitability of "War 
between Britain and Germany, let me add, in reference to 
it and the last spoken, that phenomena very similar to what 
the mutual humours of the two nations have manifested 
are also to be found in the mutual relations of that living 
individual the present German Kaiser and his contem- 
porary (male) British Sovereigns, Parliaments, and People. 
Never did Chief of one state turn franker face to another 
than he to Britain. Throughout his reign that man has 
done all that he in honour and dignity could do for peace 



148 REAL CAUSES 

and good understanding between his country and ours. 
Met at every turn by indifference, slight, and snub; the 
antipathy of a Crowned Nothing for a strong personality 
in royal seat ; the insolent opprobriums of Hustings Senate 
raging at Monarch not amenable to their dictation ; and to 
the People chosen aim of every foul projectile, mark of 
obscenity's jest. Met by curses, taunts and mock; basest 
slanders, lowest insolence in every kind; the whole dis- 
graceful riot of vulgarest impudence flaunting its naked- 
ness in the face of Man; joined in by every rank from 
King to Pleb, one gutter breed that revels in profane in- 
decency, as fairest answer it can give to royal grace and 
generous favour. Enough was here alone to make him 
look to his ships and to his men : Me they may traduce, if 
so they please. But each true son, stepping sternly into 
rank : Who mocks our Father bears no respect to us ! His 
dirty offers, thought to be sweetened so, we cast back in 
his teeth. The dog unspeakable! And Father likewise 
fearing all efforts for peace must fail. How long he 
wrought and with what width of vision, faith in Britons of 
another quality than go to make the Roaring Rabble, it 
may be our cue to recur to when we come to speak specially 
of him. If, when these proved unavailing, unresponsive, 
too few, too impotent or too unstable, Britain broke all 
faith and Rabble charged in full pack on the throat of him 
and his, iron entered many a German heart, and souls grew 
grim at such reply to offered brotherhood, were it any 
wonder ? For him and his nation, broadly, I have no fear 
of any permanent perversion so, but could never have the 
face to say Hold! to their just wrath's most terrible 
scourge. 

Germany wished peace with Briain. That in the present 
instance she did is not denied. Britain only took the flimsy 
pretext she did for entering the war on the further pre- 



REAL CAUSES 149 

tence that Germany had malign intentions upon her here- 
after: Things beneath further comment. But Germany 
wished peace with Britain permanently, if equitably main- 
tainable; though her Thinkers, her Statesmen, and her 
Kaiser, unless exceedingly blind, must have been growing 
continually more and more aware how small were the 
chances of this ; yet still hoping against hope. "Where the 
issues are such as were between Britain and Germany, it 
is customary for the party which is in the wrong and 
playing false, to try to preclude from the one which is in the 
right and standing true, any fair hearing of his case ; not 
exactly by anticipating it, but by setting up for himself a 
simulacrum of it : So here, the Britons say it was they who 
wished peace, etc. : We have seen with what degree of sin- 
cerity. Sincerity of wish for peace, etc. : totally incompat- 
ible with British deeds, but perfectly compatible with Ger- 
man. The one wished peace as between equal brothers ; the 
other was determined not to grant it unless all those cosy 
arrangements he had privately made were submitted to; 
willing enough for peace if they were, I daresay, pitifully 
zealous they should be submitted to, and wringing his 
hands distractedly when he saw those pretty plans of his 
resulting in — what they were bound to result in. Germany 
did ask no more than her 'place in the sun,' and Britain 
rejoined: What dog-hutch the gods will grant you I reck 
not and care not, for in this of my providing shall you 
house. Your place in the sun, Germany ? That stretches 
far, does it not? It is, it should be, the deepest soul's 
longing of man to reach his fullest development, stand 
forth free in his Manhood's right and stature unimpaired, 
be all that it lies in him to be; his highest, most god- 
commanded, duty to endeavour this and achieve thereof 
what he can. Yet, also, highly incumbent on him to know 
that what arena his strength shall be given is decided by 



150 REAL CAUSES 

another than him, and be content to toil for good in narrow 
field. Perhaps there is in this war some further lesson of 
that sort for you as for all of us, though I blame you never 
a deel for bringing your mailed fist down on the hutch 
of Britain's prescribing, so your devout heart resent none 
of the Maker's ordaining. 

If war between Britain and Germany was Inevitable, 
then it was the former's humour which made it so, and 
if further seal to this were needed you had the final in the 
fact that it was Britain which voluntarily made war on 
Germany, spurning all assurance and generous offer. War 
certainly was inevitable unless the British humour changed 
for better. To me, from the time I came to a man's 
understanding of things, this was plain. Hope still existed ; 
long fading, I suppose we may say it vanished what day 
that Sower of Dragon 's Teeth, your Peace-Maker Edwardus 
Septimus came home crowned with Entente, the adulated 
of surrounding flunkies : Merely a question of date when 
after that, I know I thought so at the time. Once the 
British had politically stepped clearly beyond the Neutral, 
decisively declared sympathy and friendship with the Con- 
tinental Anti-German Camp, there could be no doubt left 
what the upshot would be. There, also, we observe, in that 
tentative, as in the actual onslaught, Britain, charging 
aggressive purpose on Germany, was herself the Aggressor 
in fact. And ever since has hostility grown rapidly more 
and more pronounced, less and less disguised ; check to you 
here, check to you there, thwart to you in this, thwart to you 
in that, rein you up hard on the left, bar you there on the 
right; take what you will, good Russ. We'll never owe 
you a grudge ; Fair Itaile we have no quarrel with thee; 
and Honey sweet Celt find paths to our will i' the dark; 
Albert stand firm in that breach, for your carcass may 
save us from worse ; Ministers of State openly threatening, 



REAL CAUSES 151 

tirading in a way that merited the whip, instant dismissal 
from office at least, only to be passed over by Germany as 
the stump-oratory of irresponsible demagogues; Military 
Commanders in Chief crying aloud in the streets for war, 
and naval expenditure rising by leaps and bounds. And, 
along with all this, solemn public statements nothing hostile 
was intended, nor any obligations entered into could draw 
us in, provided always he '11 sit still, ne 'er stir hand or foot, 
submit to all and meekly take the utmost provocation 
heaped, not said publicly till after, then in the heat passed 
over. How utterly lying those statements were we now 
know, might throughout have been seen. Absolved of all 
iniquity by this one saving grace : So long as he 11 submit 
to every ukase, no stroke shall fall on his devoted head. 
Sing praises to the Lord ! We hoped 'twould never need 
to. Saturation in Make-Believe, Gentlemen, Faith in 
Transparent Humbug, if these be not here. Where ? 

It cannot be requisite for me now to write anything 
separately upon how the Briton and the German respec- 
tively viewed the Inevitability of war: Damn you, lie 
quiet in your crib and we'll have none: It cannot be 
escaped, then. Nor, on the respective Preparation of the 
two. That of the British you have just read above. Over- 
netting of the earth with diplomacy, much Bidding for 
Allies, with fleets and armies not neglected this time. 
Clearly a good advice that, and we'll follow it, have a 
competent Business Administrative, too; for the rest, if 
we can't gain our own chosen goal, perhaps we'll think of 
heaven hereafter. For the German: Our armies, fleets, 
intelligence departments, let naught be lacking there; our 
whole discipline, national organisation, be stirring, every 
man in his fit place and station ; no hopeful diplomacy be 
neglected ; our coherence as a nation, our Manhood, heroic 
constancy and veritable worth of soul — Now is it put to sore 



152 REAL CAUSES 

trial under heaven; and the just, the noble and true of 
every nation pray it may be equal to the test. 

There eyes do regard you, 
In Eternity's stillness; 
There is all fullness, 
Ye brave, to reward you; 
Fight, and despair not. 

Wir heissen euch hoffen. Yes, He bid you be of hope. 
And we that are genuine Britons, abhorrent of the swine 
stampede we could not stem, we also hope for you, and 
strive to hope for Britain. If the world united succeed 
in crushing Germany, the cloacce of the universe will 
yawn wide for Britain beneath the skin of triumph. If 
the world cannot, there is one sound Nation on earth. No 
hope that Another, by nature yet dearer to us, could cast 
out rottenness ? 

Most terrible and wilful has been British Ignorance of 
Germany. I spoke of being able to fill pages with ex- 
cerpts, and shall give some now relating to prior Political 
Ignorances, which to reflective readers will be significant : 

... 'A great deal of ill nature was generated in 
'England by this one affair of the Privateers, had there 
'been no other; and in dark cellars of men's minds (empty 
'and dark on this matter), there arose strange caricature 
'Portraitures of Friedrieh (to-day's readers say Wilhelm) 
'and very mad notions — of Friedrieh 's perversity, astucity, 
'injustice, malign and dangerous intentions, — are more or 
'less vocal in the Old Newspapers and Distinguished Cor- 
' respondences of these days. Of which this one sample : 

'To what height the humour of the English ran against 
'Friedrieh is still curiously noticeable, in a small Transac- 
'tion of tragic Eg- Jacobite nature, which then happened, 



REAL CAUSES 153 

'and in the commentaries it awoke in their imagination. 
'Cameron of Lochiel, who forced his way through the 
'Nether-Bow in Edinburgh, had been a notable rebel, but 
'got away to Prance and was safe in some military post 
there. Dr. Archibald Cameron, Lochiel's brother, a stu- 
'dious, contemplative gentleman, bred to Physic, but not 
'practicing except for charity, had quitted his books, and 
'attended the Rebel March in a medical capacity, — "not 
' "from choice," as he alleged, "but from compulsion of 
' "kindred"; — and had been of help to various Loyalists as 
'well; a foe of Human Pain and not of anything else what- 
*ever: in fact, as appears, a very mild form of Jacobite 
' Rebel. He too got to France ; but had left his wife, chil- 
'dren', — And Readers remember, he returned several times 
privately; was at length caught, tried and executed, Be- 
cause 

' His Grace of Newcastle, and the English generally, had 
'got the strangest notion into their head. Those appoint- 
'ments of Earl Marischal to Paris, of Tyrconnel to Berlin; 
'Priedrich's nefarious spoiling of that salutary Romish- 
'King Project; and now simultaneous with that, his ne- 
' f arious conduct in our Privateer Business ; all this, does it 
'not prove him, — as the Hanburys, Demon Newswriters and 
'well informed persons have taught us, — ^to be one of the 
' worst men living, and a king bent upon our ruin ? What is 
' certain, though well-nigh inconceivable, it was then, in the 
'Upper Classes and Political Circles, universally believed. 
' That this Dr. Cameron was properly an ' ' Emissary of the 
' "King of Prussia's"; that Cameron's errand here was to 
rally the Jacobite embers into new flame ; — and that, at the 
'first clear sputter, Priedrich had 15,000 men, of his best 
'Prussian-Spartan troops, ready to ferry over, and help 
' Jacobitism to do the matter this time ! 

'About as likely as that the Cham of Tartary had inter- 



154 REAL CAUSES 

'fered in the ''Bangorian Controversy," (raging, I believe, 
'some time since, — in Cremorne Gardens first of all, which 
'was Bishop Hoadley's Place, — to the terror of mitres and 
'wigs) ; or that the Emperor of China was concerned in 
'Meux's Porter Brewery, with an eye to the sale of nux 
'vomica. Among all Kings that then were, or that ever 
'were. King Friedrich distinguished himself by the grand 
'human virtue (one of the most important for Kings and 
'for men) of keeping well at home, — of always minding his 
'own affairs. These were in fact the one thing he minded, 
'and he did that well. He was vigilant, observant all 
'round, for weather symptoms ; thoroughly well informed of 
' what his neighbours had on hand ; ready to interfere, gen- 
'erally in some judicious soft way, at any moment, if his 
' own Countries or their interests came to be concerned ; cer- 
'tain till then to continue a speculative observer merely. 
'He had knowledge, to an extent of accuracy which often 
' surprised his neighbours ; but there is no instance in which 
* he meddled where he had no business ; — and few, I believe, 
'in which he did not meddle, and to the purpose, when he 
'had. 

'Later in his Reign, in the time of the American "War 
' (1777), there is, on the English part, in regard to Fried- 
'rich, an equally distracted notion of the same kind brought 
'to light. Again, a conviction, namely, or moral certainty, 
'that Friedrich is about assisting the American Insurgents 
'against us; — and a very strange and wdubitable step is 
'ordered to be taken in consequence.' The stealing by Brit- 
ish Elliot of American Envoy Lee's Despatch Box to wit, 
Whereof: '. . . Not since the case of Dr. Cameron was 
'there a more perfect platitude or a deeper depth of igno- 
' ranee as to adjacent objects on the part of Governing Men. 
' For shame, my friends ! 

' . . . Friedrich 's own notice of it " . . . Shan 't fail, how- 



REAL CAUSES 155 

* "ever, to write to England about it, . . . for they are 

* "impertinent" (say ignorant, blind as moles, your Maj- 
*esty; that is the charitable reading).' Friedrich, Bk. 16, 
Chap. 13, and Bk. 21, Chap. 5. 

It was the charitable reading, but, if the ignorance and 
molish blindness remain, the impertinence, vicious ani- 
mosity, is likewise now too indubitable. Sordid misconcep- 
tion, followed by obstinate refusal to be enlightened, issues 
at length in confirmed incapacity to conceive otherwise 
than sordidly, to see at all. However, it is not the political 
ignorance which I mean to dwell upon this instant. Sure 
enough it is a very ill thing when Statesmen do not know or 
try to learn the true features of neighbour nation, do noth- 
ing save retouch traditional caricatures pleasing to their 
vanity — and worser passions; yet the Statesmen are not 
alone, or even chiefly, guilty : It was but as the Hanburys, 
Demon-Newswriters and ill-informed Persons had taught 
them. Marry, if with cosmic report by the true well-in- 
formed very free to their study, they deliberately chose 
Master Williams his slop pail, poured nectar of gods out of 
window and toasted the Demon in sherris-sack more to their 
taste, — ! "Well, even so, they did but anew take instruction 
from others ; on whom the first guilt falls. Had the Writers 
of the day, the true Intelligence Departments, in a far dif- 
ferent sense to that poor spy one, but done their function 
honestly, no Island Simia had done a circus turn, with Bear 
and Celt, on such a metamorphosed beast. Ah, sirs, the 
Ministry of the hour ^ is not, in intrinsic character, or at 
least in original capacity simial : By God, no ; no man of it 
is — or was. But this I must hold till I come to speak of that 
Ministry. The Bishops — let us not speak of them. They, 
with their wigs and mitres, can stay in Cremorne. I'll be 

^An hour during which this book was written. Sept., 1914; March, 
1915; note of July, 1915. 



156 REAL CAUSES 

no Cham to interfere; or they might catch a Tartar in 
earnest. If there be men, ' fit to be recognised by their fel- 
lows as priests and high-priests, able to dispel the uncertain- 
ties and direct to the Enternal interests in any complexity 
of moral doubt and cunning greed earth's fields can pre- 
sent, ' it is in Literature alone, not in the extinct hierarchies 
of the nominal religions, that they are to be found to-day. 
Literature is the Eye of every modern state; and, of any 
single class or order in the nation, British Speakers of the 
Word are more to blame for their country's malfeasance 
than any other. Their peculiar function is to render true 
report and to maintain it ; it is for them to be ' everywhere, 
in all practical deeds of earth, the seeing eye, the heroic 
volition, which cans and dares by direct contact with all the 
everlasting truth of things'; and had they been this, done 
their duty, we should not now be at war with Germany, for 
one item. Since Carlyle and the handful who so half- 
heartedly hung about him, there has been no real British 
Speaker of the Word at all ; in the main part, nothing save 
a tribe of mountebanks, and the Scribblers of Fiction in top 
place instead of bottom. Not to my knowledge has there 
been one that has borne testimony to Man, or spoken from 
the Everliving; and in the denial of Carlyle there never 
could be : None, himself true, ever rejects or passes over a 
Great Soul like his. What we have had has been a general 
endeavour, not to overthrow him or his teaching, but to 
get round the same; and proceed full sail in open sea 
as hereto. Each skipper, approaching such Teneriffe or 
Atlas unremovable, casts his eyes asquint ; salutes with what 
grace he can muster; makes a tack or two, and thanks his 
stars each mile now lessens height in the receding distance : 
and it is the Men of Letters who have led the way in this; 
taught Statesmen how. He told you that hitherto was not 
an open sea; unless free ocean to world's end, better com- 



REAL CAUSES 157 

parable to millrace : I do not know if all tlie clever naviga- 
tors continue happy in results achieving. "We no more row 
all ways at once, nor put to sea in leaky bottoms, captains in 
a doze ; ships yare, all hands alert, expert with tackle of the 
best can be, we'll ram the Mill, send it to perdition : That's 
your notion ? "Well, it will be a Trial of Strength like — like 
several I 've seen. But your Intelligence Department has not 
tried its strength with Carlyle ; I allow it has had that much 
wisdom. It has sidled by, with various grimace, and shuf- 
fled round the corner. Yea, verily, your Writers do not 
stand before you as Lights of Heaven, revealing to you 
your nobler selves, your Past and your true path through 
the Present to the unknown depths of the Future ; they are 
men, either utterly shallow, or whose own innermost souls 
are in shuffle, that have never found what they should have 
been able to tell, nor gone the right way to seek it. They 
are poor creatures, crippled wretches, that have been trai- 
tors to themselves ; not fit to direct you to what you should, 
or say you Nay when you are bent on what you should not ; 
only fit to do as you bid and endorse with pretended author- 
ity whatsoever your desires may be, your imagination de- 
picture. I could name several in whose original capacity it 
lay to have been Lights of Heaven, real Speakers of the 
Word, indeed, but they turned to folly, never faced the 
perils in stern solitude; and their words, accordingly, are 
more mischievous than those of born fools. These Writers 
have talked to you much about present Germany : But what 
did it lie in them to know ? They could find their like there 
and report of them: their like is found in every country 
perennially. They could tell you of the Falstaff Regiment, 
and swear it King's own chosen corps there, as Democracy's 
here ; but no immortal god, or meanest private of that Regi- 
ment could their eyes discern to know him from haltingest 



158 REAL CAUSES 

Jack begging at the town's end, or sprucest drumming 
proudly up the esplanade with following enow. 

Carlyle's last public word, or what he chose to leave as 
his last public word, was his letter to the Times during the 
Franco-German War of 1870, and upon that war, British 
sympathy with France. We are told, by Froude, that the 
effect of it was great, that it sufficed to check that ill-based 
sympathy from overt mischief ; and believe so much. Check, 
clearly enough, for the moment; British feelings cowering 
down, — with contrary whimpers irrepressible and wide- 
spread. Froude and Ruskin themselves shilly-shallying and 
playing double. British sympathies did not change direc- 
tion, and soon found a way round the corner. It was the 
last cheek: since that day, the stream has gone on in one 
continually increasing torrent to the present issue. And it 
is plain to me that since 1870 there has been, in addition to 
all other elements, and, in some views, more horribly ugly 
than the other elements, a rooted Fear of God 's Judgments 
in British Anti-Germanism, an impious recalcitration 
against those Judgments, arising out of fear they might fall 
on themselves too ; a most impious private determination to 
reverse those Judgments, to set up their own as superior 
to His, and thus be secure against the like tried on them: 
Yes, Gentlemen, this is a Trial of Strength I have witnessed 
before now. 

Well, we have come a good way from the Primitive to 
reach this, the Acme! Authentic primitive Trial of 
Strength, unexalted, unabased, could not be here. Both 
nations had long since reached an intelligent manhood, 
which, whether it went forward in the same or fell back- 
ward, had forever rendered return to that impossible. 
Since you would not give the Peer 's Welcome, war was cer- 
tain ; but no simple Trial of Strength was open to you, only 



REAL CAUSES 159 

this very compound. If you could have given the welcome 
due, your course would have been clear to you. You would 
not have feared Germany's increasing power, and no war 
East could have provoked war West. Your course had all 
been straight and honourable. You would have said : The 
East is not our concern. And to France, if she sought to 
seize opportunity to attack Germany when engaged in East- 
ern War : Hold ! now. Give assurance of Neutrality within 
twenty-four hours or our fleets do lay your northern coasts 
in ruin. If you meddled at all, the sole straightforward 
honest course there was, not on your lying hypothesis, but 
in the living truth and every noble generous impulse of 
Man, What thing you have done — Is there aught can now 
wash the stain of it from Britain's honour? 

Militarism 

This is a word in all men's mouths, though what they 
mean by it might be difficult to define. The war is to crush 
German Militarism. Not Germany? Oh no! Dear solid 
Germany, riding to death under a Nightmare Abstraction, 
we rush to save her from the precipices, exorcise demoniac 
possession. Well, first catch your Abstract Bogey and then 
we'll see what sort of gibbet ingenuity can devise for him. 
If material, a mere carved turnip with candle inside, the 
shot and gunpowder expending on him ought to prove effec- 
tive. If, as the air, invulnerable, viewless as the winds, a 
mere nothing coined in fevered fancy, he might perhaps 
have been cheaper got rid of by staying at home and taking 
physic instead of administering such a drastic dose. We 
will drop the Ism, meanwhile at least. 

Assuredly there have been Militant Powers of a sort. 
Conquering hordes led on by men whose aims have been to 
establish their own sway over as large a portion of earth's 



160 EEAL CAUSES 

surface as they had power and luck to subject. And in 
revolutionary frenzies we have seen the like. Mr. Churchill 
directly compared the German aims of to-day with the 
French of that past epoch ; and concluded for comfort that, 
as the nation was not the same, neither was the Man, thank 
heaven! On which hint, it has been common since to see 
Kaiser Wilhelm portrayed with the shade of Napoleon in 
the background. Than which nothing could be more ab- 
surd; Macedon and Monmouth not in it. Churchill, of 
course, with the insolence endemic, spoke in contempt; 
meant that the Kaiser need not be similarly feared, as hav- 
ing nothing of Napoleon's Military Genius; the thank 
heaven! was therefore. Of the Military Genius, I do not 
profess to be so lordly a ready-made judge as yon scion of 
Corporal John's, but know very well that he beats the 
French Captain through and through in every other regard, 
and is of ideas totally superior to any Napoleonic. If any 
depth of ignorance or platitude could be amazing to one! 
In the inflated ambition certainly not comparable, either he 
or his nation; on the military side perhaps incomparable. 
For your ease of endowment: Where truth is abandoned 
and fact not regarded, where is the difficulty ? Most utterly 
fantastical, shameless, disgraceful, are your likenings; the 
bestial riot of baseless fancy. You talk of the * Unspeakable 
Prussia,' and are yourselves unspeakable indeed. 'Swol- 
len-headed Wilhelm' gurgles the gutter, and His Majesty's 
Front Bench make noise in harmony. Montaigne does 
report of one who could command tumultuary organ to 
tune; but there are some things which decency forbids 
description of. 

There have also been Military Powers of another sort; 
though that is the sort you mean. Bubbles of an hour, 
those you refer to; the gaseous, vanishing at cock-crow, 
whatever havoc they have wrought. The solid have no 



REAL CAUSES 161 

cousinship; they have never been hordes, but settled na- 
tions, usually eminently first in civilisation; and, if they 
have sometimes premeditated conquest^ their conquests have 
been lasting, beneficent, a blessing to the conquered. Where- 
of, of course, Rome is, par excellence, the example ; and you 
might, by the bye, do well to note that it is not the conquest 
of all Italy, of Gaul, or Spain, etc., which remains a stain on 
Roman Virtus, if possibly the jealous crush of rival Car- 
thage does. It had pardon to ask; but done on her own 
strength, I think got it. Rome, you may also observe, was 
there the Rising Power, not the Prior Ascendent ; and Car- 
thage merited deaths however unjust and merciless the exe- 
cutioner. These were in Heathen Times. Christendom 
affords no instance of a sound and healthy yet selfishly ag- 
gressive Military Power; nor could, such thing being con- 
trary to its Faith. Sound and healthy, nobly intelligent, 
yet, in some cases, premeditatedly aggressive Military 
Power is not a thing that I believe to have finally vanished 
from the earth, however. No ; I believe that such, informed 
by a very different spirit to the old heathen, will again be. 
For I know that the wider Faith of the Future will often 
not only sanction but command ' aggression ' ; properly only 
in an expansion of the same faith which prompted the 
Christian to command it against the pagan. I should by no 
means care to guarantee that Germany is not to be a Mili- 
tary Power of this sort; that something of the nature of 
what I here hint at is not at work, with much foreign 
admixture, in what you call the professed Doctrine of Mili- 
tarism, as expounded by some Germans. Your extremity of 
rage at it points that way, and one has had direct glimpses 
of things confirmatory. Supposing that such a Military 
Power does exist in Germany, however incipiently — The 
Doctrine would never have provoked your rage, any more 
than a thousand other Isms which racket and clash at home 



162 REAL CAUSES 

without let or hindrance. — I say, supposing that the spirit 
which can again go forth over the world conquering and to 
conquer has so far reached maturity in Germany as to give 
the least visible indication of its approaching material by 
spiritual Might, and it could reasonably be called a cause of 
war ; namely, in that reversal of the truth where the enmity 
awakened by it is the true Real Cause. Visible indication ? 
I do not know that this is requisite. Hounds of Anti-god 's 
breed have a very keen scent, quite capable of snufSng 
Divine Essence before it has clothed itself with earthly 
body. But, however that may be, it is almost equally non- 
sensical, quite equally nothing could be, to attribute this 
war to a determination on the part of Germany to force 
her Kultur upon less enlightened populations as it is to 
ascribe it to inflated ambition and lust of territory. No 
sole haughty Up with me! here broke the peace; but a 
dirty pack's united cry of Down with you! let loose the 
Furies. 

Germany's Army is a necessity of existence to her. It 
came by unconscious instinct of a vital need ; has been main- 
tained, enlarged, in an intelligent and conscious recognition 
of that need, not in ambitious views : most soundly based on 
Fact. Ever hitherto it has been very nobly and restrainedly 
used ; more stainless, or, if you prefer it, less stained laur- 
els few armed hosts have been crowned with than this Ger- 
man. It may never yet, this modern German army, have 
fought for a highest human cause; but it has been solid 
honest for an earth not shut to heaven, therefore in touch 
therewith. An immense military force very finely under 
the control of just and modest human reason ; no mess-room 
inordinacies swaying its Commander's counsels. Intrinsi- 
cally, a blessed phenomenon, German's Military Power. 
That it is capable of abuse necessarily follows; and rebel- 
lious spirits, which owe a trembling hatred to whatsoever 



REAL CAUSES 163 

could compel them, have naturally done their do to make 
out that it has been abused, and is a Power of Satan: 
whom no man ought ever to have heeded. That a military 
spirit in bad sense is sure to exist in an army like the Ger- 
man, in the nation which possesses such an army, goes 
without saying; for it always does, and we have examples 
to spare at home. But there is no evidence that it had at 
all got the upper hand ; there is at least one positive assur- 
ance it had not, the existence of the Man whom you chiefly 
swear infected with it; and all the evidence you have 
brought goes everywhere to prove that it had not. You 
cannot even assert the malign intentions without simul- 
taneously demanding credence of such a triple involution 
in JNIachiavellian art by Man and People hitherto noted for 
downrightness, and wide-winged, distant schemes prepos- 
terous in them and him, you tell each sane intelligence 
you're candidate for Bedlam, likelier for Newgate. 

Germany 's Army is a grand one ; and I can well believe 
that if she come through this war, it will have much to 
conquer for her yet on just cause arising. But hitherto and 
now it has eminently been for Defence, and her Growths in 
territory have mainly followed as results of wars forced on 
her, against which she successfully defended herself. 
Sword wielded by that hand, controlled by that Soul, is not 
what I had feared, burrowed foul to find Allies to protect 
me against; could think a danger to fair progress, or the 
one true Freedom of Man. 

That in the Military and other organisations of Ger- 
many, her national discipline, spirit of loyal obedience, sub- 
ordination and co-ordination, there is very probably grave 
danger to what you are pleased to call your Democratical 
Institutions I do fully admit, but do not at all weep there- 
fore. Pugnacious Winston 's trepidations there were honest 



164 EEAL CAUSES 

and well founded. He specified Constitutional Monarehy in 
peril ; whether instantly after, according to wonted formula 
he named Free Parliament, I do not recollect. 'Twould be 
understood, if not, and modesty is gracious, — sometimes: 
all know It true priceless summit, what figure be wheeled 
first in state procession. "We, Cherubim and Seraphim, 
whose opposing strains produce sphere harmony without 
monotony, our loss were the Irreparable. Better all earth's 
fields were drenched in blood than our security of seat be 
put in jeopardy, and nations lack celestial guidance. Such 
examples flowing now of wisdom, holiness and justice; so 
grandly reticent, composedly dignified, a Cabinet of States- 
men unmatchable, whose spiral course puts eagle flight to 
shame; the whole world to the rescue if any other sort of 
luminary threatens to dispute the sky. Ah, that's a peril 
must be dealt with early, nipped i ' the bud. God knows it 
might be a sun in verity. Haste every man to snuff it out 
while still on the horizon; another hour and it will be up 
beyond our reach. Then were the gaze of men directed 
thither, their hearts no more enthralled by harmonies within 
these walls and sky-signs glory. The abomination of deso- 
lation would supervene; and burning rays leave no green 
place of rest. For without those angel troops' continual 
bickering, sublimely traced ^ in dread of sacred right 's 
invasion, where should we be? Imagination cannot grasp 
it quite ; feels sure it were the end of all things sweet, and 
happy earth a Tyrant's desert. 

When young Sir Garnet Wolseley sought to see Carlyle 
and went as soldier to a sage, he got, through one rent in 
the clouds of Eld, weary and foredone. Yes, yes; I hope 
you'll bring some bayonets yet to bear on yon "Westminster 
folk. Carlyle never thought that the mere substitution of 
bayonets would be much of an improvement, that a Military 

*Not for long!— iVote of July, 1915. 



EEAL CAUSES 165 

Despotism could ever cure the ills we suffer; yet he knew 
very well that to whoever should cure or attempt better- 
ment, the Military would be indispensable. And if Messrs. 
Asquith, Churchill and Lloyd George were to ask the souls 
God gave them candidly (were such a thing now possible to 
them) ; the better sort of Liberal and Labour men, yea, and 
of Tory, too (probably not present in Parliament) ; I think 
those souls would answer : The thing that we would do can 
never be done without. The experiences of those named 
Three, in their own strenuous domestic campaigns for much 
that was good ; made futile, tumbled down as fast as built ; 
such enormous expenditure of time and effort for trifling 
or no headway ; ought to be sufficient to make them confess 
It is hopeless : These Reforms that dwell in our hearts (not 
to speak of what would have dwelt in those hearts in hap- 
pier circumstances) cannot be carried by hustings persua- 
sion alone. Considerable part of the deadly animosity of 
France and Britain toward the German Military and other 
spirit is that of mutinous spirits; the oath of the legions 
of Nox, where chaos umpire sits, that none other shall sit 
umpire. Whoever can conquer that, or lessen its realm a 
little, will certainly be no Genghis Khan or Tamerlane, no 
ancient Attila nor Modern Hun of your imagination, but he 
will full surely be a Knight in panoply and Chief of Armies. 
If not blinded by soul, lost in the night, given up to delu- 
sion and pledged to fanatical Principle, the better among 
you might have seen in that in the German could say Nay ! 
to Hustings' Supremacy great hope; hailed fellow-worker, 
for mutual aid and mutual enlightenment. But, as it is, 
the Bigot's Shibboleth is all with you. Sir Edward Car- 
son and his kin, perfect in its accent, shall be left unmuz- 
zled, permitted things amazing ; but a noble German Kaiser, 
toiling for his country's good, holding out the hand of 
brotherhood to you, who will not pronounce it, must to the 



166 EEAL CAUSES 

dogs: The Article to be believed for salvation is all, and 
Manhood naught. 'Tis pity it should be so with you! 
'Twixt King Carson and King Wilhelm one can believe the 
gulf unbridgeable. But 'twixt Sire Asquith with his hench- 
men know no division deep as hell, if wide as mortal Error. 
Could name a better too, than either one of this Home Trin- 
ity, Canadian Laurier. They will never be charmed: I do 
not dream it. You never heard tell of a Church Militant? 
No soul among you ever yearned for silent rank therein, 
instead of successful persuasion of mob to let Your Excel- 
lence be minister to its will? 

Anarchies cannot be subdued by Force. If the soul of 
man has not first overcome its infidelities, all its efforts will 
not better a bad matter. But if the soul has conquered its 
infidelities, Man will, of a surety, front anarchy armed, the 
mailed fist often be in evidence. 

Where elements are multifarious, some are just neutralis- 
ing antidotes to others ; the introduction of fresh poison not 
always sorrowful when thus called for. If, as you so swear 
to be the case, German infirmity has run to doctrine and 
practice of brute force, may not this, in the sum, prove 
wholesome counter-active to your soft-sowder, heaven to all 
and sundry doctrine and practice? I should not bless the 
German infirmity any more than the British; but might 
rest somewhat pacifically satisfied to let the two wrestle it 
out between themselves; thankful when Kilkenny ended, 
and only the tails were left. Shocking Vandal, too, as easily 
pass muster, twinned with Dilettante. Or, in another key, 
remark that whilst one would so much prefer to see doom 
executed by Destroying Angel, if a day of judgment come, 
it is by far more common to see the Butcher let loose. 

Here, then, is obviously the place to speak of the alleged 
German Atrocities, if one speak at all. I may say, at once, 



REAL CAUSES 167 

that I make little of them in every sense ; regard the allega- 
tion of them, as characteristic of the German^, as the super- 
lative Atrocity. They were so alleged instantly by Mr. 
Churchill, etc., without the smallest enquiry; so taken up 
by the nation ; and this fact alone were sufficient to vitiate 
British witness on the matter. Frightful things are always 
done in war; and it is never until long after that one can 
know what was really done, much less what guilt was in it. 
Considering what a frenziedly excitable people the Belgians 
are, what a humour they met, and had been taught to meet 
the Germans in, foregone conclusion of horrid Barbarians 
and God knows what, for British Statesmen to take any- 
thing on their report, much more lend it sanction to the 
nation, was — well, I had rather not say what it was: It is 
customary for the hustings' chosen to make what capital 
they can out of whatever appeals to hustings ; but there is a 
Court of Man where no such pleas avail them. One too well 
knows what the general Populace of Europe, wherefrom the 
common soldiery is drawn, to-day is; not sober, religious 
peasantry, 'soul of a nation's worth.' Ah ! no. Neither are 
the Upper Classes, wherefrom the officers are drawn, re- 
markable for earnest piety and an iron restraint of passion. 
No perfect discipline was to be looked for, and, in fact, no 
horror could surprise. These words apply to all engaged 
indifferently ; and, certainly, I have no belief the German is 
the worse. War is terrible : destruction rages, many towns 
are in ruin and thousands 'innocent' slain: Yes, but it is 
not the heavens which lay the whole blame of that on one 
pair of shoulders. The bombardment of Scarborough, etc. 
One does not know why it was done ; can guess several prob- 
able reasons; for wanton destruction and 'massacre of 
babes,' just hysterics. Suppose it was, which I do not 
believe, prompted only by the thought. Those Islanders, 
sitting secure there while they bring desolation to ten 



168 EEAL CAUSES 

thousands of homes, shall taste a little, are you the one to 
rebuke ? In such a war, I do not know either how far the 
feeling Smite all, without remorse ! might find pardon : For 
sure there seldom was one wherein the People more thor- 
oughly deserved punishment. Our Statesmen, — not being 
Statesmen, nor having gone into war in just and stable 
spirit, being Demagogues that have got into war through 
enmity and by scandalous contrivance nominally to avert, — 
do nothing to moderate the emotions of poor human crea- 
tures, who should have been able to look to them to calm, 
restrain as well as to rouse, instead of exciting and utilising 
for political objects. Just indignation and level equity: 
Good God! What have these to do with such a quarrel? 
Whip up ! Whip up ! Fan madness into flame ! The wilder 
furor best befits our thirsty pack; and Huntsman's duty 
but to keep his dogs upon their prey. Thus making one 
Atrocity quite indisputable, however many lie in doubt. 

The answer to this matter is: Suspend all judgment till 
you really know the truth of the facts. When you have 
really got to know the deeds of the several armies in this 
particular, you may be able to compare them with each 
other, or some other standard. That when the veil is lifted 
and sober truth can tell what has been done, it will have 
many acts of savage 'atrocity' to report of individuals in 
each and all of the armies is not doubtful. The question 
then will be. By Whom ; with what allowance ; under what 
conditions? And in fair reckonings, also, What deeds of 
nobleness and mercy to set in the opposite scales? If still 
you find too much to pass in silence, must condemn, 'be 
judicial, measured, not shrieky, mobbish and flying off into 
the infinite, in giving verdict.' The Germans are a brave 
people : Valour and gentleness were never separable. Nor 
are the acts of earnest valiant men done in grim stern hours 
comparable with disport in horror, even when such as may 



REAL CAUSES 169 

after give ground for remorse. It is not in the least for me 
to be apologetic for the German, or plead condoning cir- 
cumstances. Yet, in free human brotherhood, I note to you 
that the circumstances under which the German is fighting 
are mightily different from those under which you are fight- 
ing. YoUj for all the cry of strait and Help us! creation 
at large, are, comparatively, fighting much at your ease as 
yet; he is fighting against enormous odds; ringed with 
fearful peril, threatened with imminent perdition on nigh 
all sides at once ; and many things are more than excusable 
to, are directly incumbent as duty upon, man so beset, 
which in other predicaments were wholly unwarrantable. 
It is disport in horror, callous indifference, which you 
charge; and your allegations are not worth regarding. I 
shall give two utterances of that humane Friedrich whom 
your perversity loaded with still blacker crimes, and which 
I have no doubt voice the heart of living HohenzoUern in 
much also. 

1st 'There is nothing left for us, mon cher, My lord, 
* but to mingle and blend our weeping for the losses we have 
'had. If my head were a fountain of tears, it would not 
'suffice for the grief I feel. 

' Our Campaign is over ; and there has nothing come of it, 
'on one side or the other, but the loss of a great many 
'worthy people^ the misery of a great many poor soldiers 
'crippled for ever, the ruin of some Provinces, the ravage, 
'pillage and conflagration of some flourishing Towns. Ex- 
'ploits these which make humanity shudder: sad fruits of 
' the wickedness and ambition of certain People in Power ; ' 
(Yes; in another sense too.) 'who sacrifice everything to 
'their unbridled passions! I wish you, mon cher My lord, 
'nothing that has the least resemblance to my destiny; and 
'everything that is wanting to it.' {Last word of took 18.) 

2nd 'May Heaven grant, — if Heaven deign to look down 



170 REAL CAUSES 

'on the paltry concerns of man, — that the unalterable and 
' flourishing destiny of this Country preserve the sovereigns 
* who shall govern it from the scourges and calamities which 
'Prussia' (say Germany) 'has suffered in these times of 
'trouble and subversion; that they may never again be 
' forced to recur to the violent and fatal remedies which we 
'have been obliged to employ in maintenance of the State 
'against the ambitious hatred of the Sovereigns' (and Peo- 
ples) 'of Europe, who wished to annihilate the House of 
'Brandenberg and exterminate from the world whatever 
'bore the Prussian name!' {Booh 19, Chap. 1.) 

Yes, your atrocity allegations are all of the same old 
tune, and so are the 'Militarism' ones. You said just the 
same of that Friedrich, in this respect, too, that you say of 
the Living, — and you say it as falsely. True Warrior and 
true Man of Peace are forever one entity; and so long as 
the present Kaiser lived there was no sort of danger from 
mess-room inordinacies or German Military spirit in the 
bad sense. Had you hated it, you would have seen in him 
security against it; and your obscene raving at him tells 
plainly not it does your soul abhor, but fears what might 
whip you deservedly. 

Militarism is a word in all men 's mouths ; and here is the 
best definition of what they mean by it I can find for you : 
' Men and Knitting women repeat Federalist e, with or with- 
*out much Dictionary-meaning; but go on repeating it, as 
' is usual in such cases, till the meaning of it becomes almost 
'magical, fit to designate all mystery of Iniquity; and 
^ FedSraliste has grown a word of Exorcism and Apage- 
' Sat anas.' 



REAL CAUSES 171 

n 

DEMOCRACY VERSUS AUTOCRACY 

It is one of the loud clamours that this war is a struggle 
for supremacy between Democracy and Autocracy, and I 
am sceptical of its being so, at least doubtful how far it is 
so, only wish I could thoroughly believe it is so ; for that 
it is no struggle between Democracy and Tyranny is out of 
doubt with me. British constitutional abhorrence of all 
actual Sovereignty, existent in Germany alone of nations, 
is beyond question a Real Cause of the war ; but this is not 
enough to make it a struggle between Divine Authority and 
Anarchy, constituted or sans Constable. No ; for that much 
more is requisite ; a great positive in the German nation. 
No negation will suffice. For it there must be not merely a 
remaining-existent Sovereignty, however actual, but a vi- 
tally intelligent of the Present, and an adequate following. 
Quite easy for you to rush forth madly fencing with Bogeys 
of your own creation, to furiously attack the house wherein 
is lodged — naught like them. Quite possible for the owner 
of the house to meet you, buffet till one or both has gotten 
satisfaction; but this will not make him Michael of the 
starry kingdoms, nor all his troops bright with intelligence 
of heaven: Which extremity is not demanded of mortals 
either. — Whereof in the last subdivision of this chapter, 
with possibly some other touches as we go along.^ 

Democracy, Autocracy, these, too, are words bandied to 
and fro with more of magical than human meaning. By 
Autocracy, you — those Britons whose soul's workings have 
given birth to this War, whom I here address as 'you,' 

' Nothing special is said of tliis in last subdivision, the ' other 
touches' having sufficed. 



172 REAL CAUSES 

though surely in more hope of awakening Britons of an- 
other strain than of making much impression upon them: 
Indeed in Jiope of neither, but just in clear determination of 
speaking straightly to the fact, as first incumbent duty. — 
By Autocracy, you mean, in the main, the despotic rule of 
One Man in a prideful self-will. With an abject discredence 
that one man in sovereign power would ever use that power 
otherwise than — otherwise than one of yourselves would, I 
suppose ? Each of you imagines that he knows how himself 
would use it ; swears that, since he cannot come by it to use 
so, no other shall; and is unable to conceive of him who 
could possess it without vanity, to sway beneficent o'er 
brother men in frankest league with him. Nay, nowadays 
you do not stop there. But have taken oath unitedly: 
The One Man, sovereign in verity, be he good or be he ill, 
shall no more be, at home or in a foreign nation. We will 
not suffer him on any terms. For our envy's gna wings 
cannot endure him, nor our rages abide the thought of him. 
Be he blessed or banned of heaven, our fellest curse shall 
fall on him: He's a damned miscreant alway; and if the 
Deity think other, He had best go to school of Our Learned. 
Your attitude towards Autocracy is easily described: a 
definite concentrated anathema of it; there is no difficulty 
in writing that down. But no human pen could report 
what you mean by Democracy, give clear account of your 
attitude in it. When head is indistinguishable from foot 
and corpus somersaults distractedly, no man can say which 
end you stand on. Your body and your soul have long been 
seething in the Melting Pot, where shape is lost awhile, 
ebullitions noises no part of a language. Small wonder that 
the notions of a head in such a whirl should be a simmering 
heap of contradictions and absurdities, a wild confused 
embroilment of utterly chaotic nonsenses, with Fixed Ideas 
clung to in hope they may be Eeason. Men must have 



REAL CAUSES 173 

something fixed; with nothing known so, do swear these 
Ideas are polar, and the world revolves on them. First 
fundamental, therefore, that everything shall he decided by 
vote ; notion springing from and leading to the bottomless 
infidelity that things will be as voted. Truth and Fact? 
We know not what they are, yet have Opinion ; and Major- 
ity 's will give an axis. No matter that the stars thus lose 
all certain place and course ; our world still turns and turns 
on something of its own contriving, can let celestial dance at 
random. Apparent and Real motions : Who save star-gazers 
cares which is which? The world travels and spins in 
nothing in either case, no man feels its motion; then let 
ours somerset as it may, 'twill still give ground to build on. 
Your Prophet taught the duty of staying at home ; and in 
thus providing axis for our world, heedless of extraneous, 
we've heard well bet than you. Fixed ideas are of such 
various sorts; and the most unshakable adherence to those 
of this sort nowise compels a man to mean the same thing 
two hours together, but is, of course, compatible with quite 
limitless Freedom, well known the breath of life to De- 
mocracy. 

Here, too, you have taken a general oath. Namely, that 
there shall be no actual supreme Authority not instantly 
amenable to popular wind ; that Public Opinion, what you 
call the Will of the People, shall itself be the supreme 
authority. Neither does the unattainability of any such, 
thing in the least disturb the fixity of idea. One admits, 
indeed, at once, in regard to the first part of the oath, that 
if a People have really sworn it in their souls, they have 
raised a complete bar to the coming of any noble man to 
authority among them; which above everything else re- 
moves all bar to the ignoble, and the oath in whole is a vain 
imagination. For, in every form of Government, it is the 
men who have by what means soever, been voted Chief, and 



174 REAL CAUSES 

not the men who voted them so, who are the Authorities. 
Choose what men you will for your leaders, and choose 
them by what method you will, you have by choosing them 
leaders surrendered yourselves to their guidance, and are 
no more your own masters ; servants obedient or mutinous, 
servants to the blest or the cursed, you may be, but hence- 
forth servants. In your inveterate abhorrence of this sub- 
jection, you keep up a theory of Sovereign People selecting 
Ministers to its will ; a practice of noisy contentious persons 
persuading the People, by the arts they are forever per- 
suaded by, to let them be Chief, with promises to do as the 
People bid (having before explained to them what it is 
desirable for them to bid) and consult them at every turn — 
which cannot be got round without. A thoroughly menda- 
cious arrangement, flattering base repellence of control with 
a pretence of Your obedient lackey, sir ! and giving control 
to the unlovely tribes who wheedle for suffrage. 

Mob's Fixed Idea, of nothing shall compel us, is thus 
retained ; and Political Artists, skillful enough, do their own 
sweet will with naught 'twixt selves and a heaven too dis- 
tant hypothetical to hamper. They did the People's also 
this present? I fear so; yet clearly not according to the 
Constitutional Bargain : The Parliament did not ' go to the 
country ' on the matter of this war, nor were elected for it. 
The Cabinet did not go to Parliament upon it, save super- 
ficially and long after the die was really cast. It was not 
the People that slunk behind a broad and open Treaty 
guaranteeing respect for Belgian Neutrality, to make a 
Private Compact for certain contingencies, understood 
without needless specification; and, by thus bidding for 
the supposed Neutral to take side, in essential fact, first 
broke the Open Treaty. It was not the People that under- 
took to protect the northern coasts of France ; thus telling 
her: Now, practise what you will, you're safe. No Sole 



REAL CAUSES 175 

Despot could have commanded the British Empire into 
(and in) this war, more absolutely than the present Min- 
istry has. I am far enough from saying that the Supreme 
Authority ought to consult the People at every step; only 
pointing out to you that it no more does so under the exist- 
ing regimen than any other: It never does, or can, or 
should; and it is not by fidelity to Transparent Humbug 
that you will ever be better led or commanded. 

To men of another kind than those British whose soul's 
workings have wrought this war, Autocracy does, by dic- 
tionary meaning, denote the rule of One Man; but they 
have nothing to do with magical designation, and do not 
instantly conclude the One a cursed miscreant; have no 
manner of objection to the Single Person, simply because 
single. Those British are fanatical supreme power shall 
not be vested in One: these men are not fanatical it must 
be ; can live and work under many other conditions ; have a 
marked aversion to attempt altering any tolerably good. 

The wisest may have a profound conviction that the One 
is best, when rightly attainable. They know, by direct per- 
ception, that, wherever men are seriously determined upon 
accomplishing aught, command by One is the rule they 
spontaneously fall upon ; that, from Parish to Empire, the 
preference of Council sayis sovereign invariably signifies 
more desire to appear important, to have a say, than to get 
anything whatsoever done. True men also know by direct 
perception and the devout intuition of their own souls that 
it often happens that one man is incomparably wiser and 
nobler than all other men ; that, thus, in every cormnunion, 
from the Family and Business to the State and Empire, this 
of Autocracy is, not merely expedient, as even rogues and 
most worldly men can see it to be, but is also the divine law 
for Society, the outcome of whatever is highest and deepest 



176 REAL CAUSES 

in man, as well as the instinct of his common sense when in 
earnest about anything. That the chief authority be every- 
where vested in One is a thing to which the human loyalties 
forever trend; and Freedom's Sons, who tolerate no 
tyrant are just precisely they who live and die for him their 
souls revere. 

A Just Autocracy really is the thing to be constantly 
striven toward. And who best knows this is most patient 
with, most zealous for, any Government which does en- 
deavour to do the will of heaven upon earth. 

If the word Democracy denotes Rule by the people, it 
denotes a thing non-extant in creation. If a particular 
method of electing officers : there are many worse and many 
better. To men of to-day it denotes a thing undeniably 
existent, which they have studied and know tolerably, 
though to define it they may confess themselves unable. 
The chief truth it demands has been said to be this : That 
the officers shall be chosen from all ranks and classes, in- 
stead of from a few only. The final abolition of Levi, to put 
it whimsically. Moses, or somebody, decided that the Sons 
of Levi should be priests to the Hebrew People, they and 
no other. A very primitive plan ! yet extensively followed 
since, with modifications. Can you tell me, for instance, 
how many of your chief Parliament men are Sons of Attor- 
neys or Attorneys themselves? Moses' law could never, on 
this imperfect earth, have been without exception ; and you 
see that much the same result is stiU reached without need 
of the House to pass an Act restricting entry to one race. 
There is a natural law in this, which cannot be got over, 
which it should not be our wish to get over. — But perhaps 
I have run into somewhat of an Oliverian simultaneity here, 
and had better, to avoid ' inextricableness, ' mark the two 
concurrent ideas, or facts separately. (1) It is the inde- 
structible tendency of the son to follow the father j and, in 



EEAL CAUSES 177 

the broad general, the son is likeliest to be fittest to succeed : 
Classes and ranks will thus forever spring ; and, so long as 
they do spring free from nature, may be blest. (2) The 
element will always draw its own, lift none save its own to 
top place^ bear none other to possible victory; what thing 
men strive for, that determines who strives for it; and 
according to the banner raised will the hosts which follow 
it be: Orders of exclusive temper and Monopoly of Office 
by men of a certain character are thus perennial, blest or 
cursed even as the character requisite for entry is. — We 
cannot get over these facts, and should never aim to. To 
know true Breed and cherish it as nature's own way of 
producing a still finer race, instinct with genius. To recog- 
nise intrinsic worth wherever born and by living manful, 
speed it to its rightful place of power. Officers chosen from 
all ranks and classes! Is there not an ambiguity here? 
Birth in palace or cot not to decide. Yes, indeed, to keep 
the gate everywhere open to the true heaven born, closed on 
the devil begot. But integi'ity's stamp to give no prefer- 
ence^ and gaol-bird wing as free a flight, borne aloft on the 
Popular Vote ! If Democracy mean supremacy to the noble, 
it means what every good man has done his part to bring ; 
if it mean clear path to all and sundry, it is a wild delusion, 
issuing in paved road to the damned, shut gate to the godly : 
It is the latter, not the former, that it means in current dia- 
lect ; and, if we quite refuse to leave Autocrat synonymous 
with Cursed Miscreant, I think we will contentedly leave 
Democrat to designate a dog whose day we pray may, in the 
best time, be ended. 

Many teachers have you had praising either one and 
cursing 'tother, but only one modern that taught the truth 
and falsity of each and all. "Will the British People never 
learn and understand how their Carlyle was a believer in 
the French Revolution and in Cromwell and in Friedrich, 



178 EEAL CAUSES 

first made all these truly known to men ; was a Radical of 
Radicals, a Tory of Tories, a Labour's Advocate like few, 
and a better seeker of Justice to Ireland than any partisan 
for or against Home Rule ? How, in all those seeming con- 
tradictions they continue to clash internecine about and 
about, he so long since found a living harmonj^ and revealed 
it to whoso would hear. Perhaps they never will ; and, as it 
is a wearisome business to me to keep repeating what ought 
to have become truisms to every man, so to them very 
wearisome to hear again what they have unanimously decid- 
ed to stop their ears to. Here is one bit of adder's wad- 
ding, from Sir E. T. Cook's 'Life of Ruskin,' which I doubt 
not will match your own wear : ' Neither Carlyle nor Ruskin 
have told us how to get the rule of the wise without liberty. ' 
There is a hopelessness about such a remark which might 
legitimately cause some of us to stop our ears. In fancy, I 
can hear some that have heard cry instantly: Of the man 
who could utter this, let us hear no more. Statement incon- 
trovertible, as it stands; yet the only answer really needed 
to italicise without liberty! and put an exclamation mark 
instead of period. Pity is that one cannot put a period in 
another sense! Carlyle taught that we should each of us 
try to learn a little for himself who are the really wise and 
wherein the true liberty of man consists ; neither is it those 
who have heeded his words that find them insufficient. 
Cook has never heeded his words nor tried to learn either of 
these things. 'I expect, as almost the first thing, new defi- 
nitions of Liberty; gradual extinction, slow but steady, of 
the stupid "swarmeries" of mankind on this matter, and 
at length a complete change of their notions on it. . . . The 
meaning of Liberty, what it veritably signifies in the speech 
of men and gods, will gradually begin to appear again ? ' ^ 
Pass over all this and the like of all this, let no word which 
* Shooting Niagara and After, Section 6, 



REAL CAUSES 179 

issues from and enters soul be heard by you except as bar- 
ren vocables, continue to insist that liberty shall mean what 
it signifies in the barking of dogs and the buzzing of 
swarms, — you may then verily say Carlyle has not taught 
you. You may then much more than say he has not told 
how the rule of the wise can be got without liberty ; for he 
said with emphasis enough, it could by no possibility be 
got with. But this also will not do for you, since the prior 
question Who are the wise? has also been passed over by 
you. In your vain impious thought, they are the creatures 
of your choice ; and, by God, you do get them. 

Cook is one of those saluted Teneriffe with what con- 
strained grace he could muster — Much towering majesty, 
all sombre; some wells of sweetness might be found, if we 
dare venture land, but ominous volcanic rumblings and 
dread of frightful lightning forbid so hazardous a step — 
soon made a tack and sailed free ocean ; relieved from close 
proximity, shot his bolts of criticism into blank air; the 
favourite practice. Cook is one of those who has gone a bad 
course. Long hanging by poor Ruskin, he, in highest mat- 
ter, took his peddlings for sufficient triumph ; shunned solu- 
tion. Persuaded himself Carlyle, who had conquered thor- 
ough before he ever spoke at all, had never fronted. Since 
there may be a God, 'twill be the prudent way to act as if 
He were : for thus, in either case, we run least risk ; if none, 
small loss; if Yea, much penalty escaped. And faithful 
service will sure reap guerdon? — Is it desirable to pursue 
the course ; or comment on the sequent Zeal for 111 ? 
Reader, don 't go to the like of him to learn Why Britain is 
at War. 

No, nor to learn how Carlyle taught that, as surely as in 
unjust authority may be lawfully rebelled against, must a 
just be established ; with what a wide and noble wisdom he 



180 REAL CAUSES 

has shown men how to toil to bring the rule of the wise on 
earth with liberty indeed. 

Modem Democracy was born of Revolt against Effete 
Authorities. It is usual to speak of it as a revolt against 
Tyrants, Diabolical Authorities; the Devil nowise effete; 
but this, in strict language, is hardly correct. The general 
European revolt against powers of an actively vicious char- 
acter was done some time before ; and by a totally different 
class of men, theocrats, not democrats. Our Great Rebel- 
lion was against tyrannical authorities; but was informed, 
withal, by a positive faith which was true, and issued con- 
spicuously in the Single Person; collapsed partly through 
vicious hostility in itself to such Person. The French Revo- 
lution was the turning out of hopelessly impotent authori- 
ties ; was informed by positive faiths which were mad, and 
issued conspicuously in a Tyrant; maintained itself by 
ready obedience to his most arbitrary will. I do not believe 
that Democracy ever could overthrow the disciplined dia- 
bolical ; but that, attempting this, it would always find itself 
a writhing worm beneath mailed foot. Oliver and Gustavus 
did front ranked Powers of Hell, and gave them such a 
punishment they have never been dangerous since, — or till 
to-day. But the properly democratical revolts were, as they 
remain, against Futile Authorities, against officers who had 
become unbearable from sheer Incompetence ; against obes- 
ity, sodden rottenness, no alert and cunning knavery or 
Jesuitry, no Potency of Satan in what form soever ; against 
Impotency of Bankrupt Imposture. 

Democracy, as the universal tumbling forth of masses of 
men to swear they would no longer tolerate the poisonous 
task of bearing the dead, was just, even divine ; and has had 
its due degree of victory. But when it leaves this negation 
and turns to assertion, the case is very different. Its own 
positive faiths were never true ; fanatical superstitions from 



REAL CAUSES 181 

the start and to this hour. Let it cease its wild and humanly- 
lawless yet lawful Rage of Destruction, to become a highly- 
organised disciplined community inspired by a Bedlam and 
Missionary Assertive Faith, resolved that its superstitions 
and idolatries shall be the belief and worship of mankind, — 
and it becomes itself all that it once fought, and professed 
to fight against ; thoroughly tyrannous, and, howsoever tri- 
umphant awhile, as sure as God lives, completely futile also. 
Its Rage of Destruction will then be chiefly directed, not 
against the rotten, the impotent or tyrannous, but against 
the sounds the truly regal, potent in grace ; and it will, as a 
matter of course, ally itself with its ancient foe in its efforts 
to crush men of a Faith and Practice concordant with the 
Eternal's law, who refuse allegiance to its blind impieties. 
This is the present predicament of France and Britain; 
they are not now fighting against the effete or diabolic at 
all, but have made league offensive therewith to the better 
wreak their spite upon the sterling human. They maintain 
the old war-cry, speak as little as possible of their conspir- 
acy with whom it damns, and paint of their opposite a pic- 
ture, to justify that war-cry, which is a venomous carica- 
ture without one feature resembling whom it is meant to 
represent. 

Take this extract from Carlyle's Letter on the French- 
German War of 1870-71. 'One does understand that France 
'made her Great Revolution ; uttered her tremendous doom's 
'voice against a world of human shams, proclaiming, as 
'with the great Last Trumpet, that shams should be no 
'more. . . . Well done, we may say to all that; for it is the 
' preliminary to everything : — but alas, that is not victory ; 
'it is but half the battle, and the much easier half. The 
'infinitely harder half, which is the equally or still more 
' indispensable, is that of achieving, instead of the abolished 
'shams which were of the Devil, the practicable realities 



182 EEAL CAUSES 

'which should be veritable and of God. That first half of 
'the battle, I rejoice to see, is now safe, can now never cease 
'except in victory; but the farther stage of it, I also see, 
'must be under better presidency than that of France, or it 
'will forever prove impossible. The German race, not the 
'Gaelic are now to be Protagonist in that immense world- 
' drama ; and from them I expect better issues. Worse we 
'cannot well have.' 

The British race might have worked side by side with the 
German in this, to their immense mutual furtherance. But 
it has chosen to plot counter ; has taken unanimous oath it 
will never have that second half, will do its utmost in fair 
and foul to strangle whomsoever attempts to achieve it. It 
is the thing which the souls of all false Britons abhor above 
everything else ; the thing they will not have while they can 
strike to stop it. And as for shams! They cannot stir, they 
cannot breathe or think without them: witness Entente; 
witness Royal Will per order; witness that black pool of 
horrors, their Religion. God save the Dummy King, and all 
to Church in company is their one marching music. 

Of the greater European nations, it is in Germany that a, 
Sovereignty actual and veracious alone exists ; and its exist- 
ence there provokes much Franco-British furor. Which 
furor is a Real Cause of the war. But, as said, to what 
extent Sovereignty and Democracy are at issue in this war 
depends vastly more on the German himself than on his 
foes. How far has the German Nation proved victor in 
that second harder half of the world-problem ? How far is 
it loyal to the Sovereignty existent in it? What is that 
Sovereignty 's own intrinsic character ? It may be that the 
competency or incompetency of Germany to hold her own 
in her terrible one-sided struggle, is predetermined by the 
answers to these questions; that her strength or weakness 
would be known if we knew the answers perfectly. I may 



REAL CAUSES 183 

be sure that nothing save an adequate inner victory 
achieved before can bring her safely through this encounter 
with the legions so monstrously banded against her, and 
have grave Dubiety enough as to the adequacy : Sufficiency 
in that kind can never be known beforehand. And of that 
later on. Meantime, we will continue to look at elements of 
this claimed battle between Autocracy and Democracy in 
the following three subsidiary divisions: 

7. German Kaiser: British King 

It certainly is in Germany alone that an actual and vera- 
cious Sovereignty still exists; and, if it only still exists, I 
have no hope in it. In that case, it will sooner or later be 
swallowed up by the Democratical deluge, and all its virtues 
cannot save it from that fate. However true, however pre- 
cious, priceless to maintain as long as possible, if nothing 
more than a Remnant of the Past, it will go down : Nothing 
is surer than this; that such is the Eternal's Law is com- 
pletely apparent; it is one of the many things I had in 
mind when I said that, in spite of all, the British might in 
this war be acting from an instinctive bias in accordance 
with justice : this and much else, I had in mind, as well as 
the fact that heaven makes use of all, and the deeds of the 
damned fulfil its will. If the Sovereignty we speak of as 
extant in Germany is such as can continue, can itself grow 
and extend its sway, it must be such as can cope with De- 
mocracy; in those beautiful and most true words which 
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of his Desdemona, can 
subdue Democracy to the very quality of its Lord. It 
must be as such as has itself in soul, if not fully conquered 
the anarchies of the day, which is beyond mortal, yet gained 
the faith which can front and wrestle with these unfalter- 
ing, undespairing, sure of ultimate victory, however many 



184 REAL CAUSES 

times defeated. You, perhaps, think that, because it roots 
in the past and has survived without break, therefore, it 
has only survived, and can be but a Remnant : A most piti- 
ful notion. For just as certainly as the spirit which can 
really Rule to-day must be of to-day, equal to the present 
task, so certainly must it also root in the Past ; and the more 
richly, the more directly and even in outward respects visi- 
bly, the better. 

Meantime, there clearly is in Germany a Man acknowl- 
edged sovereign, who to a considerable extent is sovereign 
and does command his nation. He is no Oriental despot 
nor Napoleonic quack ; has not unbounded power and acts 
in much by counsel; yet he lives and rules Free Man, no 
automaton or wire-pulled puppet ; has native Volition, and 
exercises authority as Almighty 's vice-regent in lack of bet- 
ter, no subject of nor pandar to his People's passions: And 
herein is Solitary. Kaiser Wilhelm may address other 
crowned heads and Presidents as his Brothers and Cousins, 
but in fact he has no such Brother or Cousin. He is a liv- 
ing reality and Man on the Throne, as Emerson might put 
it; stands frankly erect, and nobly fills a Throne so built 
on the enduring that no earthquake or atmospheric concus- 
sion has yet succeeded in shaking it. They are Shadows of 
a vanished prime, gum-flowers, upstarts of an hour, or Dis- 
creet Heredities carefully schooled in the poses required of 
them; they struggle to maintain uncertain footing yet a 
little on peaks of the submerged, blare proudly for a mo- 
ment ere the quicksands swallow them, or sit still, pleased 
with eminence, on chair with much effort carried steady, 
which they know would topple if they stirred. I do not 
know that the American Presidency comes under this de- 
scription : It is different : Faculty, of a kind, is distinctly 
required to reach it; and if the way to it were such that 



REAL CAUSES 185 

Man could reach it, he, once arrived there, could certainly 
be seen to move, no property Lepidus. 

Something of actual Sovereignty may still linger in Aus- 
tria, but it is not veracious. It is cunning, grasping; lin- 
gers merely, hangs on and on by unscrupulous tenacity of 
grip, resorts to absolutism, and holds by the untenable ; its 
counsels are of night, and it is a Remnant only. Being evi- 
dently impotent, it did not excite fear in the British who 
made this war; obviously mendacious, roused no rage in 
them. Czar may have the name of Autocrat but is much of 
a nullity ; helpless benetted and kept in leading strings of a 
cunninger sort than constitutional. In both these countries, 
it is scheming, more or less diabolical personages who give 
command : whatever the Peoples, the Governments, remain 
bejesuited. Italy's monarchy is a set up affair; modelled 
by pattern; plastered on without root, and little struck 
since, I fear. Italian kings have their allotted functions to 
perform, win hearts by exclaiming The pity of it! when 
there are earthquakes, of inanimate nature 's producing, and 
such like : fancy 's likings may endear, no soul 's fear or rev- 
erence cements. The French Presidency is top of the Bu- 
reau; and who climbs thither gesticulates till admirations 
weary, or an envious mine explodes him, another Engineer 
of the Sublime mounts aloft for praises' sake. Not the 
Lord 's praises any time, and engineering somewhat too sub- 
lime this present. Of the British more particularly in a 
while: 'Helpless as a King of England,' said Emerson; 
and it has passed into a proverb. Nevertheless, the idea of 
Constitutional Nullity is not quite obtainable in practice; 
and flesh and blood has had its own private share in the mis- 
chief. But it is not necessary for me to insist on this fact, 
or continue to enforce it, that the German Kaiser is the 
sole nominal Chief Officer who is also real. Tabards, toom 
or stuffed, abound, and we have many who can strut solemn 



186 REAL CAUSES 

with 'insignia,' or adroitly preserve summit and counte- 
nance by skill in the conditions of allowed tenure ; but here 
alone does king's cloak hang careless natural upon shoul- 
ders of man who is royal, severe or gracious as his own soul 
prompts, spontaneous in act and speech, and of a dignity 
inborn, neither learnt nor needing to be kept up. 

Not requisite that I should insist on the actuality of the 
German Kaiser, his wwbenetted, unhobbled condition; for 
rather is this the thing which you of the opposite pole insist 
on, swear you will not tolerate. Frightful to contemplate, 
is it not? a king and manlike, vigorous, determined, broad 
of chest, and free of stride. Sure no wild beast is half 
so dangerous. If such a one be loose abroad, there's noth- 
ing safe. Kings should scarce presume to think without 
state doctor's wise prescription; their steps should all be 
numbered for them and their words dictated, choleric meats 
avoided and everything about them minced. A king of 
shreds and patches had not troubled us at all. For then 
had ours, the unsurpassable, perfect as a fashion plate, 
glanced brighter yet in heightened contrast. If we're jeal- 
ous of him, instant in dire threat on his least misdemeanour 
by God we 're also jealous for him : He's our highest handi- 
work ; and we will not see him shamed. As Joseph 's sheaf 
stood upright, his brethren's bowed, so should Britain's 
peerless Apex be the unattainable to cruder effort ; all other 
nations and their rubbed darlings confess a failing, admit 
Alas! yes; some flies do stick to them,^ thine too polished. 
A cut purse of the Empire — ! Small harm ! But king that 
gives the world assurance of a man, — he is the abomination 
unendurable ! Not from out the legions of horrid hell nor 
all the realms of chaos can come a thing like damned for 
monarch ; better any cracked vessel of dishonour should ride 

* ' You rub them with wax, and the flies stick to them. ' Mahomet 
of the Koncish Idols. 



REAL CAUSES 187 

atop than he. — Such is indeed your faith and strenuous 
endeavour : not mine. 

As I just now reminded you, Modern Democracy did not 
originate in revolt against the like of this Kaiser, against 
actual sovereignty at all, either good or evil, but against — 
well against old cracked vessels of various sorts, no more of 
honour. There it was just, and had victory. But it has 
now passed on into an active devilish forbiddal of all sov- 
ereignty: where it is unjust, and sure of complete defeat, 
in the course of centuries. It has compounded with the 
mendacious for the destruction of the true, and become it- 
self utterly mendacious. Which fanatical and diabolical 
abhorrence of veritable kingship in the abstract, eminent in 
the British above all other peoples, has been greatly accen- 
tuated by having a concrete exemplar to fasten on ; and is, 
as you claim it to be, distinctive among the Real Causes of 
this war. The inevitable, personal, private, antipathies of 
Chief Officers who are only nominal to any who is actual 
are also all countable minor causes, again most pronounced 
in the British. A brave soul in first place too nominal will 
not have this antipathy. Quite reverse wise ! He will feel 
kinship, and instinctively seek what alliance can be. Him- 
self, at all moments, working steadily and prudently to 
make the office fallen to him more of a living truth, less of 
an empty grimace, he will regard any other so striving with 
fellowship and emulation. But little men, pleased with the 
fine place they have been born to, or had the luck to gain, 
are almost certain to be riled by the mere existence along- 
side of them of a man who fills the part they only enact. 
Tempers of many different hues, yet each complexion mud- 
died by one common grudge. Pettish dislike may be in 
weakling poppet, whose more substantial forebear owed a 
grimmer discontent: their works accordant. There is the 
sourness of him not ever void of capacity had the stars been 



1,88 REAL CAUSES 

kinder, own share of will ethereal not sunk supine in very 
early days, for other wills to sear the brow ; naturally suc- 
ceeded by the more tremulous spite of him who could in 
no case have been other than a poppet. 

A few weeks or months ago my eye chanced momentarily 
to rest upon a notice in a newspaper of some play, I think 
it was, by one of the miserable zanies the British are pleased 
to name their Chiefs in Literature. A very vain, flimsy, 
effeminate, insubstantial set of creatures, Authors, is the 
prevalent opinion ; justified by the samples that same opin- 
ion lauds the highest, and none it cannot so contemn will it 
hearken or pay heed to. "Whom our souls exalt as Gifted 
our hearts must be free to despise ; for we owe reverence to 
no man, and will endow with honour what curious faculty 
tickles our humour. The motley throngs of scribblers 
courting Public 's favour, no man respects them. But such 
as come to note have surely proved themselves the best of 
the raff ; fit henceforth therefore to be granted Oracles, and 
safely to be trusted to prophesy things pleasing. Singu- 
larity, and opposite for whim, is pleasing too, by variety, 
and nothing dangerous. Which things are simply another 
manifestation of the same spirit which you show in your 
King- worship : you show the same spirit everywhere. 

* ''The Dynasts." Mr. So and So's conception of the 
HohenzoUerns. ' I had not, have not, read the conception 
and did not the comment on it, — nothing save the headline 
just given. Reflecting for the ten thousandth time how 
ready the Lying Prophets of your choice are to lie to any 
length, in any kind that may be pleasing to you, bring 
them praise and half pence ; how greedily the unanimous 
mob you, I am afraid too truly, name the British Nation, 
cheer the grossest nonsense which feeds its humour at the 
moment. 'The Dynasts. Mr. So and So's conception of the 
Hohenzollerns. ' Even you, and Mr. So and So himself, 



REAL CAUSES 189 

if you ever paused to consider what you were saying, would 
know well enough there never was Royal Race to whom the 
description Dynasts were less applicable. It is no matter, 
let him paint it camel, weasel, whale, or any other shape 
and all compounded, so long as daubed for contumely, 
you'll swear it HohenzoUern to the life. They are the 
heaven born seers can please you so ;- and of a surety, they 
do fool you to the top of your bent, — much better than if 
they laughed aside, too fooled themselves for this. 

In the fabulous histories of the East, one hears tell of 
dynasties lasting for thousands of years ; generally an exact 
thousand, or perfect mystic period by some other count). 
The days of men are predetermined, but more faithful ob- 
servation has not found them geometric or reducible to any 
law of numbers known to us. There is much truth, too, in 
the remark that fifty years of Europe are more than a 
cycle of Cathay. So that we may pass over the Oriental 
long bows, and ask If, in the authentic, any other race has 
stood a modest arch o'er subject men as long a term as this 
has? It is in the middle of its eighth century now; and 
during aU that time it has stood unbroken in the earthly 
sky. From small beginnings, continually rising and en- 
larging, growing ever the more conspicuous, the Bond of 
greater numbers, wider territories. Yet nothing magical 
has gathered round it. It has lasted and it lasts by native 
worth ever still valid at the hour, and whoso filled the 
throne has personally been worthy of it. Exceptions doubt- 
less, the virile force has flagged, but it has never departed ; 
the sources of life have never been poisoned or blasted by 
any of the fatal infections so normal. I italicise, yet noth- 
ing magical has gathered round it; for the fact is wonder- 
ful, and of highest testimony. Races of far shorter, yet con- 
siderable continuance, have early in their date sunk beyond 
hope of redemption in the imagination of a peculiar ap- 



190 EEAL CAUSES 

pointment bestowing merit, have ceased to rule in an instant 
right and acted in the supposition of an occult title. The 
Austrian has for ages been flawed by this; the whole wild 
effort to maintain the Stuarts was informed by this; yea, 
whatever of loyalty, which can in any sense be called gen- 
uine, still remains toward the present British Monarchy is 
nothing but an aftershine of this, found in the 'proper' 
people alone. It began much earlier in Britain, for it is 
the damning thing laid bare in Shakespeare's Bichard lit 
then partly cast out for a season, but of such a deadly subtle 
virulence that where it has once got hold, hope is almost 
over. Oliver indeed, had banished it forever ; but ye would 
not. And in these HohenzoUerns or their People it has 
never struck dangerous root : the demerit of its finding soil 
to grow in, the merit of perpetual wither, is always shared 
by King and People. To this day these HohenzoUerns are 
homely, simple, plain and downright ; frank Men in Nature 
and true sons of earth : the fresh air of heaven has as free 
a passage through their halls as through the humblest hut. 
They do not live in a vain show, and have never done so : 
some few of the race have tried it, and the next generation 
packed the whole out of doors. Their People's loyalty 
affectionate, substantial; trusting Man, not worshipping a 
Suit of Clothes. And this is a wonderful thing in a long 
line of Kings ; unique I believe, not elsewhere to be matched 
at all. It is common in the Founders of a Line ; indeed it is 
bound to be in every genuine Founder ; But how often has 
it lasted more than two or three generations ? The Hohen- 
zollern race differs here, too, in that it never had any very 
conspicuous Founder, but only a quiet succession of Build- 
ers. It did not spring suddenly into first rank by the might 
of a single genius, and thereafter dwindle, but grew slowly 
from private station to regal and imperial. It has emerged 
and grown massively with base always amply wide in pro- 



REAL CAUSES ' 191 

portion to height; the leading characteristics solidity, ster- 
ling worth, rather than brilliant gift or qualities to be called 
supreme, though these have not been wanting; and, on the 
whole, it has been constantly equal to its day. Born to 
king's seat generation after generation, and still filling it 
as natural right and heaven 's true vice-regent to commend- 
able extent ; degrading Pride of Peace, Inflation of Rank or 
office, never able to shell in; life still led in contact with 
the stern realities and Existence felt the supreme fact, be- 
fore which all distinctions of man's making melt into noth- 
ing ! It is evidence at least of a great virility, of a Sound- 
ness of Health, vitality and incapacity of delusion very re- 
markable. Tenfold the more remarkable when we remem- 
ber that this simplicity and veracity was retained and shone 
out heroical through a season when every other crowned 
head had become the sorriest histrio, yet survives the sweep 
of Democracy's besom applied so furiously to them. 

Dynasts! Men that have sought their own aggrandise- 
ment and thought to perpetuate their glory 's name ! We 
have had plenty of these. Here the perhaps completest 
antipodal that history records. Men that have thought 
much and earnestly of many things, and gravitated aright. 
Men that have as simply and diligently sought to do man- 
fully in the sphere they were born to as any day labourer ; 
the sum of whose labours the heavens have visibly confirmed 
honest, and faculty competent. The Stewardship commit- 
ted to them they have faithfully endeavoured to discharge ; 
and the Bank of their Capacity has, with whatever strain, 
been able to respond to the calls made on it. That Bank 
has not yet been broken; neither have they yet forgotten 
that they are Stewards or Whose. In saying thus much, I 
keep well within the bounds ; and shall say no more of the 
Race. 



192 REAL CAUSES 

For the Individual, Kaiser Wilhelm II, I believe him to 
be one of the more notable members of his Family ; superior 
to any who has carried on the line since the Great Fried- 
rich; such a one as every true German may, from the bot- 
tom of his heart, thank God for having this present. I have 
never attempted to take his measures; my own conception 
of him is still in growth, and I am not troubled with Emer- 
sonian needs to put at a focal distance. True, one can 
retire into, or stay in (a much harder task) one's universal 
relations; see him a man, oneself another. But there is 
nothing full or complete in the mental picture I have 
formed of him; I yet learn what he is, and cannot speak 
of him from any other standpoint. Concerning the Living 
who are of worth, one wishes sure enough to know whatever 
one can know, yet rather avoids than seeks finality. 

To me this Kaiser has been subject of meditation ever 
since I had, or began to have a man's thought of anything. 
An Entity of whose simultaneous existence on the planet 
one has always been more or less conscious and unf eignedly 
rejoiced in ; once known there, unforgettable. Far removed, 
invisible or half visible, whom one could so wish to see full 
face to face, know through, but has only been able to catch 
momentary glimpses of; yet, certainly, in the course of 
time, has got to know better, if not well. Keep eyes and 
ears open, if your heart be so, you will discern somewhat of 
the actual man. A king and fellow mortal to whom one has 
ever silently said Euge! confident of genuine man; has 
watched with admiration and with brotherly pity; stout 
soul in excessively difficult and perilous position, daily bait- 
ed with provocations scarce endurable ; yet erect, with rage 
restrained, speaking and doing as in a royalty unchallenged, 
fully owned. 

The newspapers, foul with hideous cartoons, native or 
imported from America, and every vulgarest insolence to- 



REAL CAUSES 193 

ward the Kaiser, published the other day a beautiful and 
evidently true child-portrait of him; Editors and Public 
alike unconscious in their soddenness how this gave the lie 
to the cartoons and comments. A slight thing may be, yet 
worthy note. A fine little face, so earnest and intent, 
already full of character and open as the day. British man 
or woman, him or herself of pure soul, capable to know the 
Children of Men from those of Belial, looking on it, might 
have paused astonished, deeply questioned. This the seed- 
ling of World-Ogre? It bears its truth to nature on its 
face, is undeniably the real child ; those ogre portraits, car- 
toon and written. Where can one find in them the least self- 
evidence of resemblance ? They are undeniably the ribald 
mock of souls obscene that revel in profanity. Germany's 
print shops and daily press teem with the like horrors? 
Yes ; but that is not your complaint, or cause of war with 
her. Your complaint is that there is still in her a man, and 
men can lay restrictions on the Beast, rein it whither it 
would not; and divine mission to disseat the same, that 
there be no nation left wherein the lawless brute does not 
bellow supreme. Were the Kaiser but reduced to cipher, his 
peers well hamstrung, the Reichstag's Choir might sing as 
much in harmony with the Holy Ones of Westminster as 
the gutter tribes of either nation do already : Uproar of one 
tenor then going up to heaven from all throats high and 
low, Briton and Teuton. 

It was as a boy at school that I first remember to have 
neard the present Kaiser mentioned ; presumably either at 
the time of his grandfather's death or during the close 
following last illness of his father. Talk by the masters, 
in the vein then current, instructing youth. For his father, 
of course, was all that man should be ; a mild and pattern 
king, harmless as a dove, and almost to be called Emman- 
uel; whom pious England prayed might live, long keep a 



194 REAL CAUSES ;■ 

son marked dark and dangerous from seat of majesty. 
Such was the vein then current, though Frederick also 
probably had features of a man. One simply listened, 
knowing nothing; went away, however, with precisely the 
opposite impression to that which the Masters purposed to 
convey, and a strong inclination to take Master "William's 
part — for he was spoken of as if still in his teens ; and we 
all know how long the British struggled against admitting 
that he had ever reached majority. The adulation of the 
father did not ring true ; in fact it was obviously a cant, 
flowing more from dislike of the son, or other interested 
motive, than like of him ; whilst the contemptuous slur of 
the son was of a quality that instantly roused incipient 
contradiction in ingenuous pupil, left a permanent question 
whether he were not really the right one. Nathless I believe 
that all except one of my school-fellows unhesitatingly 
lapped up the Master's account, that that one fell in with 
it in after years ; and, if still in life, he is probably fighting 
at the front this moment. Fighting at the front, for he was 
in the army, with such faith and strength as belongs to a 
man who had to follow the world's opinion rather than 
lose its prizes: "Well, he will not be lonely there anyway. 
They do crowd to the colours at Mr. Asquith's bidding; 
but it is by world's opinion and no soul's conviction. 

Later on one began to gain notions a little more distinct, 
though still very vague. If you have the natural instinct 
to leave noise and lies as noise and lies, you may gleam 
fragments of fact even from the newspapers and general 
babblement of men, as surely as without it nine-tenths of 
those your persuasions which you believe most soundly 
based on reason, will be nothing save a consolidated sedi- 
ment of popular delusion. Interest was quickened at the 
time of the Jameson Raid, which had been so atrocious if 
the paltriness of its perpetrators had not brought it to the 



EEAL CAUSES 195 

borders of the farcical; of its iniquitous condonement at 
home, done to shield deeper movers who could not have 
been pardoned as milkbeards, making each honest Briton 
feel as if he ought to hide his head in shame; of the 
universal bawl which burst out in England at the Kaiser 
for expressing the sentiments of every man of probity. I 
observed well, how, when the news of that Raid reached 
England, astonished indignation was the emotion sponta- 
neously excited in every Gentleman 's breast ; how miserably 
these shuffled round as soon as they found that the West- 
minster Beauties and Press Editors took a different view. 
It is thus in all matters : there is no sterling integrity, and 
the nation will in anything dance as it is piped to. The 
Pipers do not sorrow ; their ideal is that it should : Public 
opinion is the wind ; their part to raise it, and command the 
stops of the instrument which renders it into articulate 
music. It was in that spring of 1896 that I chanced for the 
first time to see a thoroughly good portrait of Kaiser "Wil- 
helm and to read some authentic speeches of his, with by ac- 
cident a very great effect on my own life. For I was in 
perplexity. Not indeed doubting of Eternal Justice, of the 
possibility of any one individual man living a life of noble- 
ness, nor afflicted with the least disposition to give up one's 
own private endeavours in that direction, but wholly doubt- 
ing, disbelieving in, the slightest outward result from this. 
Saying : There is Carlyle has just lived in this very city as 
heroical a life as ever any did ; and, so far as the world is 
concerned, he might just as well have never been born. Is 
there any compulsion to continue an effort sure to prove 
futile? And since a little passivity would close the scene 
why not let it? The sight of that portrait, say rather of 
that man, for it was such, and convincing, cracked the spell, 
which was speedily broken. There is a vigorous activity 
not futile. None may have heard Carlyle, yet his influence 



1^6 REAL CAUSES 

is beyond all reckoning. Each in his sphere must do as he 
can, not be found faithless : that is his duty, not weighing 
result; and, though no outer victory may be visible, the 
harvests are reaped there too. On which account I have 
often since said to myself, half in jest, half earnest, that 
His Imperial Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm once saved my life : 
Which he really may honestly be said to have done as 
much as if he had jumped into the sea and hauled me out 
from drowning; and, though no Humane Society grants 
medals for these silent and unconscious acts of heroism, I 
remain convinced they are quite infinitely the more meri- 
torious. I have never before publicly owned such indebted- 
ness, but coming to speak of him now do not forbear 
reporting this little private experience, make of it what you 
may. The same evening was spent with a German lady who 
then and subsequently showed me more than she knew, 
not of the Kaiser alone. Henceforth one directly knew at 
least one living man who was battling for the nobly human, 
and who was not altogether unsupported by a loyal peerage, 
by a loyal leaven in all ranks, however much impeded by a 
disloyal leaven in all ranks, jealous of Sovereign Power and 
diligent to oppose it at every turn. 

Passing on to the other times, for the above was before I 
had read Carlyle's Friedrich; when so far as I knew 
(misknew) anything at all of German history it was as the 
orthodox falsehoods had taught and some words of Carlyle 's 
own in his earlier writings had led me to imagine that 
he confirmed. Revolving things in obscure corner, I con- 
stantly could not escape the feeling that this Kaiser was 
raised up by Providence for something great, world not- 
able, probably War with Britain. And I confess to many 
an involuntary prayer that it might come in his time, if 
come it must. For the Briton who to-day attains a 
manhood alive to the Eternal Interests must have passed 



REAL CAUSES 197 

through, the terrible school where he has had in a sense to 
renounce his country, if in another sense he have found it 
again. The Land we are born in, the Race we are of, they 
are by nature dearer to us than all others. But woe to 
him to whom they are dearer than Truth and Justice. 
There is a Prime Duty which makes nationality naught, 
and Man is more than country-man. If the People to 
which we belong have rejected the highest and turned to 
the service of Belial, we cannot wish them success in that 
course. If our country have deliberately spurned alliance 
with the Better, entered into League with the "Worse, our 
sympathies cannot be with it in the struggle thus brought 
on. Could not escape, I say. For I recoiled utterly from 
the thought that high soul and character should not be 
content, might not as much be raised up by Providence, to 
work in peace unnoted and as blest. But the fact is, 
remarkable men do almost necessarily evoke remarkable 
events. Alas, when public men, they can hardly avoid 
doing so, even when they most wish it. Any thought that 
this Kaiser's, or any man's, faculty were wasted if his life 
passed in peace, unmarked, had been most impious; the 
presentiment that his existence there would inevitably tend 
to raise the antagonism, would precipitate conflict may have 
been veridical. But prescience is by whole fact, and any 
reason you can articulate is but a part. 

It is not for me to attempt any portrayal of Kaiser Wil- 
helm's character. I simply see a man of very sterling 
quality born into exceedingly difficult and perilous position 
and doing his own level utmost there right manfully; 
whom therefore alone every brave man must regard with 
admiration, love and sympathy, even were all question of 
his Capacity and Equipment for that position to be left 
out of count. Suppose him unequal to the post, — as who 
is there could say he were fully equal to it? — ^sympathy 



198 REAL CAUSES 

would the more go out to an honest one so strenuously en- 
deavouring to do his best in it and who had never sought 
it, but was in honour bound to step into it and do what 
he could there. Had the British plea ever been : He is most 
worthy of esteem and our valour honours his, yet in this 
and that we cannot find him right, must needs withstand, 
there might have been a case for hearing ; and certainty of 
at least one ready to listen, namely the Kaiser himself. 
But their plea has ever been : Damn his eyes for doing his 
utmost. "Why can't he take pattern by our Discreet Cipher, 
do nothing? That he has done his utmost is precisely 
what proves to us his entire unfitness for the post he 
occupies. God blast all kings that are not nullities ! Well, 
leave the dogs to their barking, and speak of man to men. 
In that matter of his Equipment, with him as with all, 
his inner spiritual light and soul's faith in eternity is 
first and foremost; and it is a thing of which I have 
gradually gained some knowledge, though no complete. 
From many an utterance of his own I have gathered pretty 
well how he stands in that respect. 

First, then, he is authentic, genuine, here, and that he 
publicly professes his soul does believe. As, not genuine 
here, he could not be so elsewhere. 'Deeply, we feel it, 
once smitten, the Tremendous.' An awestruck piety 
dwells deep in that man's heart. In his truest, most 
unfeigned consciousness, life is earnest, holy, fearful to 
him, and it is Deity commands him do his duty. His 
view of the universe, man's life and his own task is alto- 
gether human. 

'Stars silent rest o'er us, 
'Graves under us silent! 

'Whilst earnest thou gazest, 
'Comes boding of terror. 



REAL CAUSES 199 

'Comes phantasm and error; 
'Perplexes the bravest 
'With doubt and misgiving. 

'But heard are the Voices, 

'Heard are the Sages, 

' The Worlds and the Ages : ' 

These words of the German he could repeat as they 
were uttered; and his soul is not vitiated with pretence, 
nor is his worship a decorum. He frequently appeals to 
God ; and, if the dialect be not quite thine or mine, we may 
know his appeal heartfelt and in nothing spurious. Neither 
have I the least doubt that, had there been a living sage 
beside him who did stand intelligently free Man in Nature, 
himself had so stood, and many a thing been vastly clearer 
to him. This is saying very much. On the other hand, 
many of his own utterances tell me that he does not entirely 
so stand, still holds a little by things we must not hold by. 
They are the very light of the earth can declare our Faith 
purely, without alloy ; and one does not quite look for the 
Inspired Seer in the Practical King. If his Equipment 
in this particular be fairly the highest to be had in the 
shops about and sterling honest, he may more than pass 
muster. No developed Briton could be genuine in holding 
never so slightly by some of the things the Kaiser holds 
by. To answer Why? would lead us far. I will only 
say of Transitions : That these may proceed insensibly, with- 
out disruption, if they have been taken in time, if the 
new have sprung well before the old have become hopelessly 
unsound; whilst if delayed till the old have got poisoned 
through they cannot so proceed; whereby it may even 
happen that in a country of the unsound, perhaps incurable, 
units have advanced further than any in a country of the 
sound, though there alone is the mass progressing and 



200 EEAL CAUSES 

recovery to perfect health still hopeful. And I leave you 
to reflect whether this affords explanation at all of many 
phenomena, spiritual and political, in Germany and Brit- 
ain. To me it has sometimes seemed to do so, but I have 
no restful assurance how far. 

The Kaiser is genuine in his Religious Belief though, 
withal, aware that things are in transition, uncomfortably 
conscious of a debatable land where footing is very un- 
certain, could so active and decisive a soul admit uncertain- 
ty. By his manful life's effort, he too is helping to pave 
the way to the undebatable when a man's religion shall 
again be wholly a great Unquestionability to him. Alas! 
alas! look at our own public men! Is there among them 
one whom you can so much as name at all in this relation ? 
The Kaiser has showed himself to me in this as a strong 
man zealously wishing the inarticulate intuition of his soul, 
where a great unquestionability is thoroughly recognised 
to be, were articulated for him, in haste to act thereon; 
praying for faith as only the piously valiant can, and some- 
times, urged by need to have it clear for deed this day, per- 
haps rather too ready to take what solution was offered, or 
drive down a pile of his own in the shaking morass. Very 
admirable in the supreme need to have a firm ground to 
stand on. Very lovable in his attempts to attain it, though 
I would not always recommend another to try building 
on those piles. Like Friedrich Wilhelm, he could laugh, 
too, if he woke some morning to see them all tumbling on 
the floods. He would so fain have had final solution, and 
an end to doubts; has found this scarcely obtainable — in 
the shops about, yet by the powerful elective affinity of his 
own true being has drawn nigher to the one true Revela- 
tion; never cowardly compromised or dallied with the 
Jesuit, but stood ever resolved this moment by the light he 
had. Strong indeed in the might of a soul turned honestly 



REAL CAUSES 201 

Godward; and, if sometimes, confused by Fable, dimmed 
by passion, ever profoundly known that a living God does 
reign and men must quit themselves as men. 

The difficulties of his Political position are more utter- 
able. In name a King, under the World — Avatar of De- 
mocracy, and not to be puppet of his ministers but King in 
verity so far as able! Is there not in that predicament, 
determination enough to tax the strength and temper of 
any most Christian Hercules ? And he has never pretended 
to be more than a man of like passions and infirmities. 
Democracy is rampant in Germany as elsewhere; and 
British spleen, world's rage, that it is not yet paramount 
there, that the human does still struggle for sovereignty 
there. To be endeavouring the just and not the tyrannous, 
in noble brotherhood, co-ordination, diligent for state's 
weal, and be everywhere confronted by the smiling inso- 
lence of demagogues, strong in the might of their law, 
whose chief est pleasure is to veto, vex, annoy, teach Maj- 
esty his dependence on their sweet will. Perpetual baffle 
and every sort of exasperation with just a little headway 
here and there! Some spurts of impatience are not won- 
derful, if perhaps the normal restraint is. Thou, my 
friend, had'st, most probably, run quite amok. There is 
a touch of this in one of those White Paper despatches, 
where a German Minister regrets to a British that his 
Kaiser had come home suddenly on his own initiative; not 
asking the Minister's wise advice. There is plenty of such 
in other despatches by German Ministers to British, not 
to speak of those between themselves. Dear, dear, there 
he goes again! Alack! Who can lay proper bridle on 
him? But you, dear brethren, happier, we do confess, in 
having tamer hack in harness, and, doubtless too, that 
beast 's perfect step, the envy of less lucky grooms, betokens 
finer skill in you, the drivers, breakers in — but yet you'll 



202 REAL CAUSES 

not blame usf Have sympatliy, have charity nor lay our 
charger's freaks to our account. You see how much we 
deprecate them. Yes, yes good friends, we see what grace 
is in you, and our bowels are moved for you. We strive 
to have patience with him for your sakes. Yet, we must 
say, your insufficiency is a little trying. If you can't 
better control the brute, you'll have to take the conse- 
quences. Good Lord ! don 't say so. Nay, we '11 do our ut- 
most. And you, don't you be too proud of your precious 
gelding 's well-schooled paces. The paltriest among us could 
manage the like of him with ease ; and had you our entire, 
by God, he'd send you somersaulting. Thus you see even 
birds of a feather can quarrel. National pride and spirit 
manifest itself in various sorts. It is all very well to crack a 
jest on this matter, sirs, and may be really wholesome too, 
but the daily arts of such Gee-hoers, even when they have a 
secret pride in him, they'd have obey their will, are much 
unpleasing. The Christian Hercules, or the Goethean-Car- 
lylean, lucent in a clear intelligence of them, himself, his 
task and time might not be troubled, might be able to 
steadily pursue his way unruffled, whilst, by a finer art, 
he gradually drew around him men who better understood 
what works were verily profitable in a minister of state. 
The Kaiser does not claim to be one of the celestial super- 
latives; and sympathy is free to him as just Royal Man 
in sorely trjdng circumstance, perseverantly endeavouring 
to do as the day calls on him to do, and as if his right 
to do it were as unchallenged of man as it should be ; yet 
he too has done his part in that Herculean task, and life 
nowise passed in vain. Consider him there, in that stout- 
hearted Royalty of his, honesty of purpose, strength of 
conviction, resolute to be active in the lead, to strengthen 
and encourage, to suffer and do in the van of his People, 
as is his part and function. With too large a number of 



EEAL CAUSES 203 

that People watching jealous, thinking it their most be- 
coming part and function to guard against the least imag- 
ined step without the stipulated pens, and thwart volition ; 
who would have his voice a creditless formality, no clarion 
call or trump to rouse by its own living force : from whom, 
certainly, no Wealsmen ever come, nor such as Worth 
could turn to for counsel. The true sage counsel is of 
another breed than these, and his aid precious indeed to a 
king. Kaiser Wilhelm is giving his life in this breach, 
too; and others yet to come will profit by all that he has 
done and learnt. 

The British, both statesmen and people, have from the 
start, been what I can only describe as wantonly and des- 
picably contrary to this Kaiser; an unreasoning animosity 
and fanaticism has informed their whole thought of him 
and conduct toward him. Such individual Britons as have 
met and known him, men who love a man and do know him 
when they see him, have been full of admiration for him, 
and have occasionally expressed the same. But their tes- 
timony has never been regarded: it has been allowed to 
pass, in that temper of the day which takes glory to itself 
as just and tolerant because it permits to each his say, 
if sufficiently in minority, uncontradicted, and lets account 
incompatible with its own stands side by side therewith, 
even appraised ; yet, heedless of all verity, no whit the less 
persists in own delusion. Contradiction is apt to raise 
controversy; and this, so desirable where opinion seeks an 
airing, is felt liable to prove dangerous where an aim to 
establish the truth is surmised. The world has grown 
wiser; gives gracious acceptance to all as persuasion and 
finds its own persuasion undisturbed, none earnest for 
fact able to awake so much as an echo. The Kaiser's atti- 
tude to Britain was frank and kingly, forbearant in so 
much, and, as it seems to me, with a real recognition of 



204 EBAL CAUSES 

Britain, British character and genius; informed, too, for 
long, with a hope, ahnost a trust, that the Better in her, 
which he so esteemed, would never permit the Hustings* 
Crew to lead our nation whither he must well have known 
they wished to lead her. Those words of his, when the 
dastardly onslaught was made and he flung back his 
British Naval and Military Honorary Commands, that he 
had been proud of them, I have no doubt at all expressed 
his heart's unfeigned emotion. Like all the best of the 
Germans, he honoured Britain, felt that in that country, 
there were or had been many kindred of soul: and in the 
best of the British such sentiment is mutual, let the cap- 
throwing odds shout what they may. It was a friendly 
face that he turned to our country, the openness of an 
emulous brotherhood; and there were many little gracious 
acts, too, which Britons that had grace would have known 
gracious. And the response all this met? Absolute flout. 
Not only from fanatical hostility. From a low insolence 
which sniffs at courteous proffer, or accepts it in contempt, 
and has forgot the due of Man to Man. 

D'Alembert preferred his garret to aught that king 
could offer, yet 'loyally recognised Friedrich as a precious 
article in this world.' Put the case thus at its lowest: 
No brave true-hearted man, whatever his political or other 
opinion, contemplating Kaiser Wilhelm II, could have 
failed to recognise him as a precious article in this world; 
to have wished more power to his honour and gratefully 
interchanged civilities if their paths crossed. Wherefore, 
when we contemplate the behaviour of our Government 
men to him, we find it without excuse : He to whom Man is 
not more than Opinion is a no man. 

Grey and past the years of prime, this Kaiser with his 
People still makes resolute front against the swarming mul- 
titudes eager for their blood. Quotes Knox: 'One man 



REAL CAUSES 205 

with God is stronger than all men without.' Yea, forever 
so, what multitudes soever triumph in his downfall. If 
victor, human sympathy will more go out to him than to 
any other single man one knows of in all the fighting 
millions. The Herr Gott will not have forsaken him ; and 
certainly many damned scoundrels will be among the van- 
quished, though mostly safe in Cabinet, not gashed upon 
the field. If defeated and still strong in faith, enduring 
to the end, the winner of a more than earthly crown. 
Should the burden prove too great for mortal strength, 
heart break, the most stalwart may stand mute in love, and 
ministering spirits give healing when he awakes hereafter. 
Infallibly he will have conquered as he and the world 
merited he should, nor lived and died for naught. And 
British gratulations on the deed which they'll have done, 
if it should be the allowance of heaven that they do it, why 
speak of them? The British have long been diligent that 
way. From the time when they hung Cromwell's body in 
chains, wonderfully perseverant to root out and cast down 
from every high place whatsoever had the least relish of 
the god-like. 

In spite of all democratical blatancies, a great loyalty 
to their Kaiser, to their HohenzoUern Sovereigns generally, 
does stiU exist in the Germans. And, whatever one's 
thought of heredity kingships may be, and I myself am 
no advocate for them if any better plan can be hit on, it 
is perfectly clear that only incurably foolish or viciously 
disposed persons could desire a change so long as the race 
does continue to produce capable men. German loyalty is 
to the Kaiser, not the Kaisership ; it is personal, direct and 
instant. It is in no sense a carved figure head that the 
Germans are proud to see aloft ; but a living man of deter- 
mined character, forceful soul, whose features, whose manly 
beauties and mortal oddities are known to them, whose 



206 REAL CAUSES 

face they look straight into, and whose animating presence 
is felt among them. They do not imagine that if some celes- 
tial Reader of Hearts could sift the whole German nation 
he would find none worthier to wear the crown; hut, as 
each honest subaltern endeavours to discharge his duty, so 
is he reverent-proud to know his Captain faithful in 
his. True loyalty is always to Man, not Office. Though, 
no matter what rule determines who shall be Chief Officer, 
times must occasionally occur when he is an Incapable. 
Loyalty then upholds the present Order of Things, in hope 
of the next draw proving no blank ; but the Capable must 
again be forthcoming ere too long, or loyalty, in every 
genuine, human meaning of the word, will swiftly depart, 
In speaking of the Germans one naturally took the Kaiser 
first, transiently referred to the Kaisership after. Because 
they are still happy enough to have a man for Kaiser and 
the Kaisership has not become an empty formality care- 
fully preserved by those who profit from the keeping of it 
up ; or through common consent of contending parties, each 
jealous what new power the other might gain were it 
cast overboard ; or spontaneously by the Whole Empire in 
a thorough faith that the mendacious is the alone safe in 
topmost region. Transparent humbug, which all alike have 
a share in maintaining, which all alike see through, the 
only earthly god which all alike will pay tribute to. But, 
in speaking of the British, one as necessarily, in fidelity to 
the fact, proceeds in the reverse sequence; takes the king- 
ship first and merely casts a casual glance or two at the 
king. For here the kingship is all, and who holds it pure 
zero. In truth, too, it is neither the kingship nor the king 
which much concern us, but the ideal and practical achieve- 
ment of Constitutional Monarchy, where this means king a 
nullity, doing strictly nothing save what his State Doctors 
bid, who declares his sovereign will and dread command 



REAL CAUSES 207 

per order. For, in their dictionary sense, one has no 
quarrel with the words; values constitution as much as 
Law : In courts whereof, if the Judge deliver verdict not as 
the law directs and his own soul discerns but as the 
Counsel, who themselves make and unmake the laws at 
their pleasure and plead the cases, just such cases as they 
please to plead, have dictated to him, I will never appear — 
at least not as Prosecutor or free Witness; if you have 
power to subpoena, hale me into the dock, I suppose I 
might have to submit. Might be very willing, also, to 
appear at another call than the court's, and clear it at 
the bayonet's point. We have had no unbroken line of 
Monarchs, like the HohenzoUern ; and, for the Counsel, 
none could reckon how many dynasties they have belonged 
to; they have chased each other like shadows on a wall, 
and broken up in lamentation every other hour, yet shouts 
of exultation have each time mingled, and none wept too 
sorely. I grant a family resemblance, but then, though to 
you and me one sheep seems the same as another, 'tis said 
their shepherds know every one by the face. For all this, 
the process of reducing that Ideal to practice has been a 
long one ; only in ages and by the labour of many genera- 
tions have things been brought to their present perfection. 
The process may be considered as about complete now; 
these last fifty years, and, as things seldom last long after 
they reach perfection, one might hope a change was in the 
wind could one read any sure sign of it. 

At first sight it might seem as if very little were de- 
manded of the Supreme Cipher in this realised ideal of a 
Constitutional IMonarchy which the British have achieved, 
to world 's admiration and emulous copy. To be bedded and 
boarded regardless of expense, decked with every honour 
a fool can covet; cheers rising to the welkin whenever he 
appear in public, acme of decorous bearing from all who 



208 REAL CAUSES 

enter presence; poets ready to celebrate and oracles to 
enhance; so long as he do but meddle in nothing, behave 
with propriety and wear a pleasing mien : this might really 
to unreflective souls appear an easy lot for mortal wight, 
put little call upon him ; — how far an heroic or a glorious 
lot we are not talking of this instant. Yet on a little serious 
consideration you will see that it is anything but an easy. 
I warn you again that I am not arguing that a crown of 
thorns were much the preferable to man, but simply that 
reign in this apparent lubberland is only to be managed 
by conformity with conditions which stretch mortal address 
more than you can imagine almost. Wisdom, valour, ca- 
pacity to conduct or further any earthly or heavenly con- 
cern of men is not, indeed, required of the British Constitu- 
tional Monarch. String off with Malcolm in Macbeth the 
'king-becoming graces,' justice, verity, temperance, stable- 
ness, bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, devotion, pa- 
tience, courage, fortitude. What need have you of these in 
him, unless patience perforce be excepted? Some others, 
too, as bounty, mercy, lowliness, in your own peculiar accep- 
tation of the terms, you might be disposed to allow in him, 
as ' becoming ' enough, and harmless ; but I am speaking of 
what you require in him. Methinks I see a certain lower 
in the brows of Honourable Gentlemen at the bare sugges- 
tion of a king of theirs needing to have any grace or virtue 
except as lent perforce by them. Were it not rather dan- 
gerous he should; since, having these, Volition might be 
present too? Let him wait on their will; fulfilling it, he 
cannot but be gracious in men 's sight and virtuous enow. 

Nevertheless, there is one exception to this law of passive 
recipience ; the exception which is necessary to complete the 
rule. One mental quality a British Constitutional King 
must have these days, that of DISCRETION. Nothing else 
may be demanded of him, but this is demanded with such a 



REAL CAUSES 209 

stringency that the need to possess this one solitary requi- 
site almost parallels his ease with that of those who seek the 
Ideal Perfectibilities, yearn after the Unattainable. He 
must possess this quality of Discretion in a high degree, 
and it must never leave him unattended. His private 
friends will help him; his ministers do their utmost to be 
ever at his elbow ; sometimes, too, he may have one magnan- 
imous enough, to stand as scape-goat, if he do make a 
slip ; and, if in a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom, 
he should not lack it; but yet, despite all this, you must 
acknowledge that he does really himself need to possess 
this quality. As chastity on a woman, it is the thing incul- 
cated on him from very early years ; he is bred and trained 
to this as to nothing else; and the Press Editors, to speak 
of no other Mentors, never cease to remind him of it, 
continually preaching that Discretion is the summation of 
all virtue in a Sovereign Man. Referring to dictionary and 
ordinary meaning of the word, one would confess it a very 
desirable quality in a king, and little likely to be absent 
where the more cardinal virtues are found, only then cap- 
able of real existence ; but as is usual in all such persistent 
and particular insistences, the meaning of the word Discre- 
tion here is quite peculiar. This particular quality of 
Discretion, which forms the fundamental equipment of a 
Constitutional Monarch, has no part in judgment. Gods! 
no : What a breach of Discretion should he dare to judge. 
How much less may he act in anything according to his 
own discretion! Precisely the thing he must never do. 
It is superlatively incumbent on him to possess this quality 
named of Discretion, and the last thing he may ever dream 
of is to exercise discretion. The thing is no paradox, and 
quite intelligible on study; yet this restriction, this arbi- 
trary misuse of words always indicates a very fundamental 
crookedness of soul. There really ought to be a small 



210 REAL CAUSES 

dictionary got out giving the special meanings of plain 
English words as used by British Constitutionalists. Of 
course they could never produce such a thing themselves; 
for they would need to speak plain English in doing so, 
and would never write discretion : The highest virtue and 
most absolutely essential in a king: the quality by which 
he escapes giving offence to anybody. 

Never to give offence to any one. There have been men 
to whom the entity which proposed this was of all created 
beings about the most offensive, and one can recollect no 
Sage who ever described it as the first duty of a King. 
But, then. Constitutional, in the special sense, is an all- 
qualifying epithet; and, keeping to our point, you must 
grant the extreme difficulty of the enterprise, may privately 
remain convinced of its impossibility. The ideal is un- 
attainable, but the King will be allowed to pass if he reach 
a certain sufficiency: After all, the races subject to this 
Unoffending Majesty, how critical and captious soever, have 
human bowels. Nathless, as I continue to explain to you, 
their demands run very high. This King of theirs is to 
walk majestically along with more precaution than a hen 
on a hot gridiron, yet never show the slightest ruffle or 
disturbance of pose. He is also never to take offence ; yet 
not as a soul that cannot be offended : the offerer of affront 
must no more be curtailed of his pleasure in believing 
he has pained as he wished than of his liberty to affront. 
He is to have no will apart from his ministers; the royal 
brows are never to be knit, and no sort of heavenly efful- 
gence must put those who look upon him to shame. If 
smitten on one cheek by what Jack takes the fancy, he is 
not indeed to turn the other; such saintliness might con- 
vey suspicion of reproach: No Charybdis more dangerous 
to navigator. He is just to smile the same ; and never let 
a wry mouth soil his loveliness whatever sour herbs he 



REAL CAUSES 211 

chew as bidden. Now reckon up, if you can, what an 
abnegation all this implies : What a yielding up to Jugger- 
naut of every human aspiration, what a pitiless extirpation 
and voluntary smother of every quality of a man, to gain 
this sole king-saving one Discretion; and then the infinite 
of painstaking in teaching, learning it, till it have so 
become a second nature that the poor souls cannot now 
depart from it if they would, cling to it as the one ark of 
salvation. This lot is far different than that of many 
kings who have had no relish of any virtue, abounded in 
the division of each several crime, acting it many ways ; the 
occupier of it must commit no crime^ at least do nothing 
that Parliament or People could reckon criminal, and the 
laws are theirs not his ; he is to relish, if not virtue, all thtf 
minces of decorum and every sauce he 's dressed with. You 
might wonder how any mortal wight could attain, retain, 
such kingship — and, to speak straightly, none human could 
or would. 

Moreover, although this strained quality of Discretion is 
the essential for a British Constitutional Monarch, is the 
solitary demanded, needs such a breeding to it and even, 
you will confess, a natural aptitude; all guardian spirits, 
palace and state nurses zealously assisting, and the street 
populaces hoarsely shouting warning at any hair's breadth 
swerve seen or dreaded imminent ; yet it is easy to see that, 
so far as outer result is concerned, it amounts to nothing. 
The whole of that effort is sunk; lies as foundation under 
ground, with, as yet, nothing to show above. For the com- 
pletest avoidance of offence merely saves the constitutional 
king from being kicked out; utmost perfection in the pre- 
scribed paces just preserves from summary ejection, and no 
more. You may argue that nothing is required to show 
aboveground ; that is, that the preservation from ejectment 
is absolutely all that is either wanted or were desirable. 



212 REAL CAUSES 

Also that this preservation is a task of such supreme diffi- 
culty that its continued achievement should yearly be 
greeted by songs of praise. Doubtless too, since the role 
which the Monarch enacts is prescribed to him, its careful 
fulfilment will give satisfaction to the prescribers; thus 
leave some surplus to his credit, not, of course, of deed done 
for his nation's good, but yet of gratitude owed to his 
person. There is that in the heart of man, however, 
which cautions him against placing much trust in loyalties 
so engendered. So far, therefore, it is clear that he has 
simply attained that without which you would tip the 
scuttle; and, if he is to become at all endeared to your 
fancies must do something more. A becoming activity in 
the Hospital and Charity Departments will help a little. 
Then, whilst wary never to utter a syllable or still a finger 
as a King, he may discourage largely, and for once sponta- 
neously in words undictated, of his solemn emotions in 
finding himself in the high and responsible position of 
Constitution's Apex; much moved by his People's devoted 
loyalty, etc., etc. And all this he must not do cunningly, 
or just pro forma; but must have so entered into the spirit 
that the godless mummery shall verily seem to him real, 
his eyes weep warm tears. Thus conformable, thus con- 
firmatory to his People that they have found the way to 
the stars, he may come to be almost beatified in their eyes ; 
though, again, if he sneeze wrong, they cry at once, How 
long are we going to endure him? 

Well, you admit then, that here is a lot and problem 
fit to tax the strength, I cannot say of a demigod Hercules, 
heathen or Christian, he might raise amazed eye were it 
suggested to him, but at least of the miserable who would 
attempt it. I have no jest here. Your British Constitu- 
tional Monarchy with all your so-called loyalties to it is 
completely through and through, root and branch, what 



I 



REAL CAUSES 213 

Carlyle deliberately named it long since, a Blasphemous 
Mendacity. Which, also, you have just further perfected 
since his day. And no ghost needed to tell us what bitter 
enmity all concerned in it must feel toward any king-ship 
not mendacious. 

As for the kings themselves, were it our part to speak of 
these, equity would lead one to consider the blighting 
and blasting influence of their circumstance from birth. It 
is not our cue to go into that ; and there are things human- 
ity would draw a veil over, if not compelled to expose. 
The universal admiration of Edward VII was always 
hideous to me, though the man himself was not altogether. 
The adulation of him as a Peace-maker was especially a 
most loathsome phosphorescence. It is not Peace that such 
men forward. 

Sovereign is a necessity in any nation that would 
march heavenward: a multitude of men cannot proceed 
thither as a mob unofficered; and it is not individuals 
struggling thither who reject the aid of discipline, co-or- 
dination, though I believe they would one and all refuse 
to add to the already great diiificulties of their progress by 
carrying an officer who could not lead them. They require 
that he shall be able to lead them. And the spirit of 
reverent subordination must run through to the top : prop- 
erly, it runs down from the top. You can no more have a 
march thither with insubordination among the officers, least 
of all among the higher officers, than with a mob entirely 
unofficered. If the Chief Officer do not reverence the 
Eternal, the second in rank will not reverence him ; if the 
second do not reverence the first, the third will not rev- 
erence the second. No loyal obedience will be in a squad 
of privates to their corporal where the field marshals are 
jealous of the Chief's authority: let those reduce him to a 
nullity, force him to 'command' as they dictate, and the 



214 REAL CAUSES 

privates will soon treat their corporal in the same fashion. 
Reverence for the Eternal should be in all, and it is not 
separable from reverence for Llan : the more of that there 
is, the deeper the devotion to higher human worth. "Where 
Reverence is, grimace and pretence of respect, all hoUow- 
ness and mummery is impossible ; and wherever these are 
the march is certainly not thither. 

Temporal Authority, as it is called, has been from the 
earliest ages; and, in the higher kingly thought and act, 
its essential divinity was known and manifested. But 
never before Carlyle was it clearly preached and rendered 
evident the highest. The men of the ancient hierarchies, 
even when actually regnant, never perceived the noble 
leading of men in Practical Life to be the divinest task for 
man on earth, and devoted their whole energies to this, as 
chief est service of the Deity; never saw clearly that in the 
faithful discharge of this duty lay a sterner and more 
searching discipline for their own souls than any they could 
invent; that it more called on all heroical and godly qual- 
ities than any other task, and, most beneficent for all, was 
also for each the way to the throne dark with excess of 
bright. To command and to obey; to assist in organizing 
the lawless aggregates of men into heavenly hosts! It is 
the greatest. And it has forever been, as it must forever 
be, endeavoured where private aspiration to live each in 
the image of his Maker has inspired the lives of men; 
quite inseparable therefrom; invariably springing spon- 
taneously wherever that has been. Yet, in the Old, not 
with full recognition. It can only genuinely be where the 
private effort is, and in this sense is secondary; but this 
fact never hindered recognition. No; the failure was be- 
cause in the old the Fictitious was everywhere exalted 
above the Real in men's imaginations, and the Universe of 
their thought was not the Universe of fact: Spiritual and 



REAL CAUSES 215 

Temporal were divided, and full of quarrel. The New 
Temporal Authorities must be self-intelligent of the divine- 
ness of the work they are called to. The care for worldly- 
things should not be sordid in man; should be a further- 
ance, not a hindrance, to the life of the spirit ; this earthly 
existence in its every meanest province should glow lucent 
to him with eternal meanings, and all man's passions, 
talents, needs and toilings unite to raise him godward. 

As for the Rules by which your officers, chief and other, 
are chosen: Election is unquestionably the right method. 
But the tendency of office, in the widest meaning of the 
word, to become hereditary can no more be stopped than 
the tendency of Nature to repeat the father in the son: 
it should not be allowed to go beyond this, and it can be 
prevented from doing so. No rule whatsoever can secure 
the choice of a right man. He is only attainable, maintain- 
able, or renewable by the constantly renewed effort and 
guard of the noble; and in good part always by the mere 
grace of heaven, though where that alone is looked to, he 
is never granted. 

I have said that a veracious and actual Sovereignty still 
exists in Germany. Yet its scope is very limited; it has 
little free action, is on all hands obstructed. Ruskin 
wondered why the populations of some hero kings of an- 
cient time were so prone to mutiny, those of later, not half 
so heroic, obedient ; not I. New Temporal Authority, such 
as above referred to, in complete development is, probably, 
centuries distant on the national scale; and wherever it 
springs, or has sprung, it will have to win every inch of 
its sway, as sternly as in the Past. We should be thankful, 
more than thankful, for anything which works toward it; 
and thrice blessed is aught which still yields promise of its 
ultimate attainment without solution of continuity. Neither 
do we ever look for more than tolerable approximations on 



216 REAL CAUSES 

earth. How far there is a spirit in the German Nation 
intelligently moving that way, I do not hazard a guess. The 
Kaiser, wittingly or no, has valiantly done according to 
his might for this good cause ; and, personally,! think he has 
had some glimpses of what he was working for vouchsafed 
him. All nations are either travelling that way or else to 
perdition; but if the German be to a pronounced extent 
intelligent of this fact, it is far in the van indeed, for no 
other yet dreams it, and hostile league by them against it 
is a sure result. 

For at present this Divine Subordination of Man to Man 
is understood and toiled for by individuals only; there 
is, as yet, no incipience of a world-faith in it. On the 
contrary, the world is violently opposed to it ; swallowed up 
in a fanatical Superstition, rages delirious at the mere 
name of it. This is partly the residue of just wrath of 
mob against seated authorities of no divine title, still instant 
versus fresh claimants of the same Ilk ; yet the just wrath 
never purified or strengthened by uproarious laudation of 
Candidates, very undivine, who beg mob 's suffrage for their 
sway, much vitiated and weakened. Partly, mainly now- 
adays, it is a popular apotheosis of vices among the ugliest 
in man's nature, his jealous hatred of another's superiority 
and mutinous recalcitration against all control, with glory 
only for the Candidates which this shall grant a moment's 
seat to. 

If men cast out a tyrannous or incompetent Sovereign, 
it will behoove them to find a just and competent; and 
where the casting out has been worthily done by men them- 
selves possessed of a natural royalty of soul, potent in grace, 
their search therefore is not like to remain long unsatisfied. 
Too commonly the casting out is done by men of quite 
another description, and then there really may be nothing 
for it but to go kingless for a while, put up with a shifting 



EEAL CAUSES 217 

congeries of atoms whirled successively to summit by the 
elements. Even that may be better than a * scandalous Cop- 
per Captain ' ; peremptory veto of him one in which the most 
earnest of men will unite his vote with the street arab's. 
But the jealous rejection of Captaincy is, in all times and 
places, vicious. One does not insist on the name at all. 
'No question is to be made but that the bed of the Missis- 
sippi belongs to the sovereign, that is to the nation ? ' I have 
no quarrel with Jefferson when he says this. Doubtless 
the bed of the Mississippi belongs to the nation, not par- 
ticularly to the President, and it is a real advance to have 
made this certain; the only issue I could have with you 
there would be in the question. How far it belonged to the 
Almighty God or the Almighty Dollar? I am not using 
the word Sovereign here in any such sense as that ; mean by 
it the Man who is in first command, and am right heartily 
thankful that the notion of his owning the country he 
rules in is done away with. And it does not much signify 
what name you give that man, Kaiser, King, Protector, 
President or what else. But it signifies immensely whether 
you are honest or not in giving him any of these titles; 
whether he be or be not a man fit to have the first 
command, and whether you do or do not revere and obey 
him as verily your Commander. He is not to have all 
power, but there must be no pretence about that he has. 
I may differ greatly from you in opinion as to the degree of 
power he ought to have ; may be thoroughly convinced that 
the 'way to heaven' in this respect, lies in the getting a 
man who can be trusted, and not at all in the electing of 
such a shady individual that you cannot regard him in 
office without suspicion, live under a sort of perpetual 
nightmare he'll play you some bad trick or other. But 
still I say, first and with greatest emphasis, be honest in 
the matter : if you will not have a real king, then, for God 's 



218 EEAL CAUSES 

sake, have none. However small the power you agree to 
place in your Chief Officer's hands, be sincere in granting 
him that, obey him loyally so far, and you are not cut off 
from redemption. Moreover, whatever more should be his 
is, in that case, sure to accrue to him in the course of 
time. 

But of all conceivable misses the Constitutional Supreme 
Cipher is the completest, most unpardonable, indeed entire- 
ly damned. Consider the mutual relations of a Real King 
with his peers, meanest subjects, and then of this Mock 
King with his ! There is hardly any earthly relation more 
sacred than that between true men and their worthy 
Leader ; if they and he be noble enough, there is none more 
sacred. For there is no height to which this may not 
reach ; and all veracious instances of it are blest, each in its 
degree. As brave men love a Man, will tolerate no other as 
their Captain, so does a valiant man love them; and no 
other will or can treat his subjects as men. Where loyalty 
and devotion are, there, and there alone, freedom and 
manful self-sufficiency are. You must go to the living 
records, to your own hearts; and, if you cannot so learn 
and know how all the riches of humanity are here, courtliest 
grace and ruggedest virtue alike find free scope, royal 
welcome, and men singly and collectively are most fully 
what it lies in them to be when leagued in a reverent sub- 
ordination to higher human merit, no word of mine can 
convince you of those facts. Then look at this Mock King 
and his legions, not specially of knee-crooking, but of pro 
forma observant slaves; whose hearts are less filled with 
greed for his favours than an insolent gratulation he waits 
on theirs, reigns merely by their suffrance. From his 
eye, controlling majesty must never lighten forth; from 
him must come no word of desolating rebuke, none of vital 
command in the hour of crisis, of wisdom in his nation's 



REAL CAUSES 219 

long-enduring perplexities, of discretion, counsel, blame, 
save as Clerk of the Court may read what the Bench (or 
the Bar) has handed him. From him can come, in him 
can be, no godlike volition, no high intelligence of things 
human or divine; no power to cope with peril, or admin- 
ister in prosperity; to better men, further his nation, or 
lead one life to worthy goal : he forfeited that private when 
he pledged his soul to a bondage too base for a dog. He 
performs the functions bidden him, and him none noble 
reveres, none ignoble fears. Poor wight ! one has pity and 
loving sympathy enough for him as a fellow mortal in 
misfortune, sinned against and sinning. He got there 
God wist how ; would have been something more than Her- 
culean I reckon, could he have got out. And pity for him 
could only make one the more insist on the mournful 
predicament he stands in. 

Of the service of such, pro forma wholly, who shall 
speak ? Here who pays honour, loses his own honour. The 
effect on the souls of such Majesty's Ministers of their pro- 
fessed fealty to him they trot in blinkers, of all the farce- 
tragedy they play with him before high heaven, and in 
their own hearts to high heaven! It is unspeakably de- 
filing, blasting; they too have forfeited their manhood and 
sold themselves to depravity. Their caging of their king, 
careful breeding of the tamest race, has recoiled upon them- 
selves; as they have been jealous of all native royalty in 
him, so has every kingly quality departed from themselves. 
And the spontaneous eulogies, the voluntary exordiums, the 
universal 'loyalty,' with which he is greeted, triumphantly 
exalted; nature challenged to produce his equal! Sirs, 
all that is not to him in his proper quality, but as the 
belauder's masterpiece of art. Each feels he has had his 
share in shaping this Mock King, in teaching him his 
manners, training him in the way he should go. So long, 



220 REAL CAUSES 

therefore, as he do come out to pattern, he glorifies his 
Makers, and their hearts o'erswell in happy tribute to his 
graces. You rage at the Real King, couple him and his 
peers with the Tyrant and his parasites; yet surely it is 
the Mock King and his artists that deserve to he so coupled, 
held up to universal opprobrium^ till consignable to eternal 
oblivion. 

Real, Mock, and Tyrannical, these are the three varieties, 
so long as the Constable does keep walking ; and Republic 's 
President can partake of the character of any of the three. 
The essential distinction usually found in practice between 
a King and a President is that the one by law holds his 
office for life, the other either at will of the electors or for 
a limited number of years. This, of course, is a distinction 
which carries much along with it. He who reigns but at 
will has so much of his faculty taken up with the tuning of 
his electors that he has little left over for any other purpose, 
and all his deeds will be more or less infected with that 
primary object: For none of soul above letting them be, 
would accept Chief Office on those terms. Neither does he 
whom men can dismiss at a moment's notice deserve to be 
reckoned their sovereign; he often is, viciously and des- 
potically enough, but he always by one means or another, 
has to render that dismissal practically impossible first. 
And we are speaking of the lawful. / do not deny that the 
unchallengable forces of man's soul, divine and diabolic, 
can find their way through any statute and pocket the 
Constitutional Palladiums ; but it is not exactly your argu- 
ment they should . President for a term of years is, in law, 
a great advance on the mere at will ; it is far under the for 
life, yet does give a certain clear and definite legal field 
for action. And, within it, one asks the Americans : What 
is your ideal of your President? Is it your wish, your 
prayer and endeavour, that he be a man of eminent human 



I 



REAL CAUSES 221 

worth, gifted, capable, 'the deepest heart, the highest head 
to scan ' ; one whom you can look up to for light and guid- 
ance, can trust to act in every place, in every time, with 
Decision, Justice, Tolerance, doing that in the nation's 
name which every wisest, bravest man would wish to see 
done ; one in whose hands you feel your Country 's welfare 
safe and its honour above suspicion ? There may be a pious 
wish or two of that sort among you; as yet, I fear, not 
much of prayer and endeavour; but I do not despair of 
this coming. If, on the other hand, you would have him 
your own and your senators ' plaything ; a powerless entity 
to be bullied and breached, twitted and snubbed ; made to 
pay dear for the 'honour' he has been so lucky as to come 
by, and stand cap in hand to your multitudinous lordships 
— Why, in that case, which has not yet been reached any 
more than the other, I should have to say to you also : My 
soul come not into your company, 

Alas ! the real issue here is not between different names 
for the chief officer, or various Forms of Government ; but 
between a spirit of loyal subordination willingly obedient 
to merit, and a spirit of mutiny, jealous of authority. 

The rule by which a man is chosen for chief officer, by 
election, birth, whatever, is of trifling import compared to 
the fact of whether the Way to Chief Office is foul or clean, 
^whether it is possible or not possible for an heroical man to 
reach it. If the rule be by election, this is determined by 
who elects and in what spirit. It is not toil and difficulty 
or maze threading that stops a hero; nor any amount of 
dirt either, providing the part demanded of him be to turn 
the cleansing streams upon it, not to add to the accumula- 
tion. I daresay many imagine that where Birth is the rule, 
the above possibility or impossibility is not so dependent on 
the spirits of men : whoever does so imagine is totally mis- 
taken. Ruskin talked of its being preferable to fasten in- 



222 REAL CAUSES 

stitutions, such as those of Austria, down with bands of 
iron, to await the chance of genius being born to the throne, 
rather than men should come to think as they do in America 
— and some other places ; and, though claiming and believ- 
ing coincidence with Carlyle in political matters, was herein 
more contrary to him than the wildest Sansculotte. Un- 
happily, Ruskin 's political faith was a thing caught up, and 
preached, indeed with zeal enough, till it ran into the fanci- 
ful and rushed to foolishness; yet never, like Carlyle 's, 
rock-built on more important faiths, stable, constant and 
enduring, founded in the depths of man's being and one 
with his faith as a soul in eternity. What did Carlyle 
more utterly condemn than the thought to fasten down 
with bands of iron what has ceased to deserve to stand? 
Did he not declare that attempt as impious as futile, in 
deadly criminality unmatchable? Say that it were better 
to be a Nomadic Chactaw than profess obedience to the 
false? And assert that nowhere was there less chance of 
Genius being born than to a throne so upheld? Genius 
has been born in a manger ; but you will find no instance of 
its being born to a Line of Kings who had for generations 
set their faces against heaven's light, and chosen darkness 
for wisdom. Such a race cannot beget it. Were it born 
there, it could not come to maturity and reach the throne 
still intelligent and potent; the conditions of its breeding 
would stifle it or hopelessly cripple; for, as I have said, 
'such thrones are guarded from truth and insidious false- 
hood blasts every bud.' Only so long as the race on the 
throne is sincere, veracious, manfully fulfils its duties and 
stands open to all noble influences, free under heaven To- 
day, is it competent to produce a successor fit to be king. 
Hardly anything more strikes me about the German Kaiser- 
ship than this its Openness. Heir to that throne can grow 



REAL CAUSES 223 

into a genuine truth-loving Man wlio acts as the light ray of 
Deity in him bids him act, seeks counsel of the Silent Ora- 
cles and the Sages ; he is not from his cradle fed with medi- 
cated poisons, carefully bred to a Lie or a Pretence, sorrow- 
fully cut off from contact with the Living Real which gives 
inspiration and might. The highest of men born to that 
throne might develop to full stature, and reach it fitter for 
it than not born to it he ever could. "With the British King- 
ship the sad reverse of all this is true. No developed Man 
would accept the office on the terms offered. No simplest 
worthy human Father of a Family, or capable Manager of 
^ Business would accept his post on any similar terms. 
And yet the British, capturing him at the birth, spell-bind 
their King in it and to it ; with results altogether horrible 
to the king and to his ministers, to the parliament and peo- 
ple: bottomless mendacity which knows not a lie from a 
truth, permeating their whole thought and conduct, so that 
nothing which is not mendacious appears safe to them. 

Our Constitutional Monarchy would be endangered 
should Germany grow more powerful, argued Mr. Churchill, 
enumerating reasons why Britain should have seized so rare 
a well planned opportunity for fastening on that country's 
throat. That Ark of the Covenant (with whom we know) 
is sacred to him; and every Briton should rise to save it 
from a breath of peril. If a substantial Party in parlia- 
ment were to propose tip of the scuttle, I do not know how 
he would vote. The required kow-tows and intricate obser- 
vances pro forma sit easy on so nonchalant a nature, long 
perfect in them, but, though service to a king not fully 
cooked to his ministers ' liking were his soul 's greatest abhor- 
rence, he might be quite pleased to be rid of these obser- 
vances. What sordidnesses are here! And who are they 
that make war to perpetuate them? 



224 REAL CAUSES 

German Kaiser; British. King. What other conclusion 
than: To the former, God speed; and of the latter, 'keep 
well to windward of him; be not, without necessity, par- 
taker of his adventures in this extremely earnest Universe.' 
. . . The portraitures here given are true; and you know 
it. Yet you proclaim your attack upon Germany warranted 
and made holy because it is inspired with a hope of destroy- 
ing the former, as own and world's bane, further exalting 
the latter as own and world's salvation. Are you not a 
People abandoned to Superstition and Idolatry 1 Sins real 
and grievous, sins ultimately ruinous wherever found, 
whereof those Political Faiths you have so long shouted on 
the house tops and are now storming at the cannon 's throat 
are the modern form. 

//. The Literal Ministry 

They will never be charmed : I do not dream it. No ! 

Assuredly I do not belong to any of the Political Parties, 
and in nothing that I have said or am about to say, owe bias 
to having ever belonged to one or another of these ; yet I 
do not hesitate to confess that, so far as I have had sympa- 
thy with one side rather than another, it has been with the 
Liberal. So much so that, if demanded Liberal or Tory? 
the answer might have had to be : I do not love a Liberal, 
but a Tory I cannot abide. This non-abidance of the Tory, 
however, is with the spirit which believes Propriety is our 
salvation, and rustles angerly if virtue be not concluded 
where by law and custom it is supposed; not at all non- 
abidance of one conserving aught that deserves to be con- 
served. The Tory of my respect is mostly mute, contemp- 
tuous of party clamours, silently endeavouring things prac- 
ticable, and refusing to range himself under Tory-banners. 
"Which banners do often still name things vital to man's 



REAL CAUSES 225 

welfare ; but the noisy troops beneath them advance these 
no whit, bring them into greater and greater disrepute, and 
render their rescue ever the more difficult. And, similarly, 
my sympathy with the Liberal has only been as one hon- 
estly resolute not to hold by the untenable, in fact, as one 
still diligent in the first and easier half of the world-drama ; 
not at all as advocate of Liberal doctrines, a believer in 
their efficacy, or man much meriting one's esteem. There 
are cases in which the choice may be merely between the 
damned already and the not quite yet ; often, too, if a man 
ponder his own case, he must conceive it so; and, closing 
the profitless enquiry, proceed as he can, content with either. 
Tory and Liberal! The Tory has been the Defender — of 
the indefensible; and to Liberal, as attacker thereof. All 
speed could be the only word : It is quite another matter if 
he commence setting up instead of pulling down. Whoso 
is not solid for the first half of the world problem one re- 
jects on the threshold ; whoso despises the second far harder 
and more indispensable half, imagines that the faith and 
character which passed in the destroyer will suffice in the 
builder, is not one to go with; and, if he persist, he will 
cease to be solid even for the first half, as is glaringly exem- 
plified in the present day British Liberal. Nathless, whilst 
caring next to nothing for either, one alway, till his resort 
to direct Crime, to the joy and instant heartiest co-operation 
of his whilom Tory foe, thought the Liberal more on the 
side of Light ; indeed he clearly was so. 

Moreover, as man is ever more than opinion, the prepon- 
derance, so very marked in recent years of the Liberal 
Leaders in Parliament over their adversaries in intellect 
and general force of character, could not but cause one's 
sympathies to lean to them, if put in that preference. The 
diminution of manhood in the Tory Leaders had been going 
on long. 'Dizzy' phenomena were very ominous. Party 



226 REAL CAUSES 

of Law and Order, zealous for the Established, which apoth- 
eosised such a conjurer was evidently approaching the 
steeps ; and had the Liberal continued on his then course, 
not compounded and put in his bid as Unoffending Majes- 
ty's saviour, there is little doubt Niagara had been shot. 
Lord Salisbury, as a man of intrinsic worth, embodying for 
the last time whatever of genuine a dying Aristocracy 
could yet exhibit, was a substantial stay in the tide, but 
was and could be nothing else ; and since him the declension 
has been precipitous. Mr. Balfour was still a gentleman 
and had quality air ; he could not and would not lead, knew 
the hopelessness, could only offer impediment to his best 
ability; and in his persistence in elaborate quibble, sophis- 
try, general land of the ifs and perhapses, there was some- 
thing not merely of a martyr sufferance, but of real 
soul's convictions. For, if life to him no great perhaps, 
a mass of little ones. There is now another called to this 
great place, but no man has seen him move in it. The 
Tories should have kept by their Chamberlains, if they 
wished to remain a united and disciplined Party: Clever 
knaves the only resource left to them. There are judg- 
ments of God visible in these things: the Tories have de- 
served them and brought them on themselves; but if, be- 
fore, they were partly saved by the Liberal 's voluntary com- 
promise, we must admit that the present Liberal Ministry 
has partly owed its ' success ' to the fact that there has been 
none to dispute the field with it. So far as the Kings are 
of the smallest proper weight, for instance, what other 
staff for them to lean on, not visible reed shaken in the 
wind ? Like it or not, to a man blessed with any modicum 
of Discretion, there could be no choice between Asquith and 
the alternatives. And (no shadow of irony here), whether 
distasted at first or not, that man's nobly skilful steering 



REAL CAUSES 227 

in this particular must have commended itself to any not 
hopeless as a Eehohoam. 

Diminution of manhood on the Tory side! Yes. And 
on the Liberal? I am afraid that to me it appears all a 
down steep here, and the last leader almost collapse. So 
that one looked for nothing save lower and lower, and a 
clash of contraries alike futile, despicable. The greater 
wonder was it to me to see Faculty suddenly appear in that 
'murk of imbecilities.' For there was and is no disputing 
it. The Men of this Ministry are men of will, determina- 
tion, tough perseverance; they are men of high ability, 
expert, adroit, and their cleverness is neither of the knav- 
ish nor the reckless sorts ; they are men of various gifts and 
character firmly united, working well together for common 
aim. And that Aim is one which their minds have con- 
ceived as fair; they have devoted themselves to a cause, 
and been at least as zealous to win it as feed counsel; 
neither did fee bring them to it, but humanity's imagined 
good. They are THE LIBERAL MINISTRY; the cactua 
flower, and brightest Constellation of Merit which all that 
has been called Liberalism in British Political circles these 
last hundred years has produced. I say it fearlessly. 
Prime Minister comparable to Asquith Britain has not had 
since Chatham. It is a sad comparison. For Asquith ia 
not comparable to Chatham. Chatham, too, had opinions 
unrepeatable, notions which, as sincerely believed in by 
veracious soul, could occur only once in world-history ; but 
Chatham likewise had convictions, insights, of a man, which 
the earliest and the latest repeat, know true forever; he 
was, in much, in league with the stars, and the more he 
came to know of this world 's business the more saw therein 
the hand of divine Providence. Whereas Asquith, bred 
attorney, has only persuasions which he takes for convic- 
tions ; he is in league with whom he can gain, and the more 



228 REAL CAUSES 

he learns of business becomes in it more subtly versed ; at 
best, he traces in Event the triumph of some Principle, or 
ill-chanced overset. Indeed, when one turns to the human 
and perennial, I find no man in this Ministry who belongs 
at all to that Communion of the Brave which lasts through 
all ages, and wherein the meanest of the mean may have 
his rank. None whom one could ever worship as true man 
and valiant, whose life's conduct is a gospel to men^ whose 
words and deeds can be honouringly dwelt on in memory 
or piously emulated. Acme of our generations' Free Par- 
liaments' Cabinets, topmost thereof, brought out and yet 
celebrated with shouting enough to deafen Olympus ; and in 
the Role which numbers all who have in their day verily 
lived as men, manifested the Unchangeable under every 
avatar, no name entered! Alas! these men are utterly 
swallowed in Avatar. Their souls have never seen what is 
eternal; they spend themselves for and in the delusions of 
the hour. Not from the silent monitions but from the loud 
noises have they ever sought inspiration. 

I hope I have no personal animosity toward any Member 
of Parliament; and, certainly, so far as Members of this 
Cabinet are concerned, inclination has ever been the other 
way: to them love had gone out an it might. I chanced 
last night to read Burn's address to his Majesty on his 
birthday : — 

*Ye Ve trusted 'Ministration, 
' To chaps, wha in a iarn or byre, 
'Wad better fill'd their station.' 

Now, however hideous the deeds these men have done, how- 
ever great one's sorrow for each that his soul should have 
been, sent astray by his breeding, one does not quite pic- 
ture Mr. Asquith squatting happy with the milking pail 
between his legs; Churchill mending the thatch and ex- 



REAL CAUSES 229 

changing rough, good-natured sarcasms with the passers 
by; Lloyd George pondering 'Every 'leven wether-tods; 
. . , Fifteen hundred shorn. What comes the wool to?' 
unable to reckon it without counters. Despite the inveter- 
ate proclivity of each to regard the churning of butter as 
man's highest calling, they had hardly been worthily fitted 
with these humble stations. There are the tribes of the 
sheer incompetent, whom charity would dismiss to other 
tasks; the tribes^ too, of the malevolent and verminous, 
whom charity would deal even more promptly with; but 
then, also, sometimes men whom charity could wish had 
better known the task before them. You may have men 
with whom little could in any case be done, out of whom 
not much ever could Jiave come. And, again, you may 
have men doing grave mischief in Sion, in whose original 
capacity it lay to have done enduring good there. Faculty 
alone will not save a man from running after false gods, 
to reap in himself the reward inevitable, as well as prove 
a curse to the world. 

None of the men of this Ministry were anything more 
than names seen in newspapers to me till about the time 
of the Boer War, During that, when things were being 
blundered and rumours were flying rife of changes, perhaps 
Government to be turned out, — And C. B. come in? God 
help us ! — there ran a passing whisper through the air Not 
him but Asquith, the quality of which struck me strangely. 
For, evanescent as a gleam of sheet lightning in the dusk 
and of no more articulate significance, it was instantly dis- 
cernible a heart-breathing, such as could only have been 
toward a man of uncommon sort. Beat faith was in it: 
Save our country : That's the man. Some little band already 
knew that there was the power, whoever might have the 
form. Later, when the Liberal was floundering helpless, 



230 REAL CAUSES 

to a dissolution or one knows not what, and Providence sud- 
denly withdrew the addlehead, it seemed in mercy. A 
death from the Gods! We waft him hence, poor wight, 
unequal, let the blanket of night cover him, none speak of 
him more in praise or in censure. We grant you instead, of 
our grace, a Leader in verity. One wonders now if it was 
in wrath, a sterner judgment yet: We are weary of your 
endless puddlings round and round: Go forward straight, 
quick march, — whither you are bent ? 

Contemplating Mr. Asquith as Premier, one recognises 
great natural endowment : a quiet and constant resolution ; 
good fund of silent energy, for all his talk; of politic re- 
serve and reticence, of course, abundance, neither cunning ; 
of simply manful reserve, abiding in his strength, a notable 
degree, and, despite too many a woful rejoinder, of ditto 
reticence, courteous unmoved before the attacks of inso- 
lence, not out-staring, nor indebted to mere thickness of 
hide; a soul well-ballasted, stable of pursuit, for whose 
admirable wending of his way 'adroit' were too poor a 
word. Take him as a man of the world achieving his aim 
in the world as he found it with such observance of moral- 
ity as custom demanded, and he ranks — how far above the 
generality of Successful Men ! He does not wear his heart 
on his sleeve ; but he shows his soul to the world, and is not 
crafty. Yet what he purposes it may be more your part to 
gather than his to tell; for certain, not prematurely, how- 
soever you urge it. True original capacity for statesman- 
ship is in so much evident, though I can call no man who is 
ignorant of eternal law a statesman. Skill in parliamentary 
tactics, however high it go, is a small matter ; but skUl in 
threading the mazes, not simpler in London to-day than in 
Crete or Athens, has, from of old, been known to reside 
only in heroes. In which connexion, you will remember 
that Theseus needed a clue to hold by: None without this 



REAL CAUSES 231 

able to give more than short-lived accidental exhibitions of 
that skill. For, in my estimation, Mr. Asquith has been 
highest in what he has least prided himself in, in what he 
has done in obedience to uncomfortable necessities he by 
no means sought. The Minotaurs he went out to slay, 
named Minotaurs to himself and the public — ^Well, I sup- 
pose some of them were very ugly monsters, — most of them 
bedridden time out of mind and loath of physic to shorten 
pain. Which, himself so careful doctor to preserve the 
father of in honour, how should he succeed in administer- 
ing hellebore to? They seemed all sitting up in bed and 
raving madly, with the father inclined to patronage, when 
enterprise abroad stilled this brawl in hospital ward. He 
now names another, by no means bedridden, superlative of 
Minotaurs; and — has circled Theseus with an ugly brood 
indeed. To return : It is said and truly that this is always 
the case, that where a man is highest he is sure to be least 
aware of it. Yes; but, well remembering that, it was not 
so specially my meaning here. If our first question of a 
man be Has he an aim? the second is. What aim? and, if 
inadvertent virtues redeem, they do not excuse. In few 
things, perhaps in no thing, that Mr. Asquith has pro- 
posed, achieved as he planned, do I much admire him ; it is 
in his conduct in what has come upon him without will of 
his, in unexpected straits where he appeared cornered, 
predicaments wherein nothing save his mother-wit can 
avail a man, that he has best proved of what a quality his 
mother- wit is, tragically given evidence how very differently 
he might have proposed and achieved. If any mortal 
imagine that these remarks refer to quickness in repartee 
or in matching a snap-division, he is too contemptible. 

In the matter of the Kingship and a Prime Minister's 
relation to it, for instance: Mr. Asquith created none of 
that; he found it already extant, had to do with it as he 



232 REAL CAUSES 

could. And it certainly is not clearness of vision for the 
damnability of the thing can dim our eyes to any worthi- 
ness in dealing with it. Which reflection extends far, it 
extends to a man's whole life's conduct in his generation; 
it extends beyond our ken, and teaches to leave judgment 
to heaven. Our part but to look at the various conducts, 
endeavour to see them and learn from them. Was (is) the 
matter so bad that no man could reach the Premiership 
without soaring his soul by the way 1 may be a first question. 
Which we leave. We here take him, seared or unseared, 
arrived at the Premiership. How is he going to comport 
himself in it now he is there ? Assuredly there is a vast, in- 
deed an infinite, difference between a noble man wisely 
steering his way in a foul element with a true understanding 
of what that element is, his own inspiration drawn from 
other sources, and a man pleased to be borne thereby and 
taking its lights for his loadstars: There is no comparing 
these ; they differ not in degree but in kind. Yet is life a 
very inextricable, multitudinously blended affair. And, cer- 
tainly, I say again^ no clearness of sight for the anipolarity 
of these, no loving veneration of the one, sorrowful abhor- 
rence of the other, can possibly blind us to the least trait 
of manhood appearing in that other. If I had to say 
mutely to Mr. Asquith, when, as a householder, I received 
his Recruiting Circular calling upon me to help in righting 
the 'intolerable wrongs' suffered by Britain's Allies (in 
the normal sanctimony, it was, of course. Allies' wrongs 
rather than Britain's) : My soul come not into your com- 
pany: it is the wrongs Britain and her Allies have done 
which are the true intolerable, there were other cases in 
which I had, as silently, saluted him with true respect for 
magnanimity and a really human dealing with foul ele- 
ment. Even in the Home Rule pickle, when things were 
openly done which under any other avatar nothing but 



REAL CAUSES 233 

utter Impotence could have permitted, and Constitutional 
Liberty, Mutiny by Law, seemed giving the world such a 
spectacle of helpless absurdity as, out of Poland, it had 
never witnessed, was not he the only one who kept head? 
In his patient resolution to carry his measure, or what 
remnant of it could be got through, by the Principles he 
was pledged to, something almost great. For it was a peril- 
ous exposure of what the Principles lead to, — and, if it be 
one thing to keep head in the midst of imminent perdition, 
it is another to do it with your head's furniture turning 
out visible nonsense. What a welter for human talent to 
be engaged in! Yet still, if the talent is there! He is 
happier now, he and his, with Principles suspended — in a 
double sense ; aloft indeed on the banners, but then no need 
to act by them in fighting with a Heretic. 

May I recount here another trifling private experience? 
I had been reading some speech of Mr. Asquith 's, had risen 
from it full of disgust, and an hour or two after chanced to 
enter the post office at Stevenage. A poor old man and a 
poor old woman, independent of each other, had come for 
their first Old Age Pension installment. Neither could 
speak and tears were running down the cheeks of each. The 
girl behind the counter was both patient and sympathetic. 
They were neither shamed nor had met rebuff : it was just 
simply that such a mercy had been beyond their hope. One 
left with other feelings than those with which one rose 
from the speech. Another old woman in the village where 
I then lived said she did not know who had done this for 
them. 'Some say it is the Liberals' (the gentry of that 
part had done their utmost to make out it was not) 'I don't 
know ; but, if it is, God bless them ! ' Amen. This deed is 
'part of the sphere harmonies of the universe, infinitesi- 
mally small, yet of them.' Let none imagine though, that 
this reaUy wholesome barrel of butter churned by Asquith 



234 REAL CAUSES 

& Co. is referred to as memento that in the like thereof is 
grace most seen, Premier's far diviner tasks not hard as 
steel. 

Lloyd George and his Budgets, Finance, and other, fac- 
ulty in general! So long one had, as it were, abandoned 
hope, and the black thing Deficit seemed growing on the 
books, when Lo ! a man possessed of no Fortunatus 's purse, 
ultra-constitutional powers, or gifts peculiarly celestial, but 
possessed of Common Sense^ a good Business Head, a will 
to do and dare, and what a change ! Some distinct modi- 
cum of ultra-mundane faith, too ; were it only in the more 
equal distribution of butter. Perhaps no Joshua to lead 
you to the conquest of a land flowing with milk and honey ; 
yet, at least, an alert Commissary of Subsistence, well able 
to spy out where milk and honey are stored, and, after due 
cudgelling of his brains, to apply suitable thumbikins suffi- 
ciently persuasive on the keepers. Yield up by law a little, 
for we are Legislators, what you have gathered in the name 
of law. The anticipatory shrieks of the to be shorn, their 
feebler bleats in the cold wind since, more than fifteen hun- 
dred, I doubt, were they not heart rending? And, for 
answer, imperturbable announcement of what the wool may 
be expected to come to, reckoned without the aid of coun- 
ters. To all which, in its sphere, what could or can one 
say except Well done ! Good speed ! One was always right 
heartily thankful for these things, though constantly aware 
that there was a want of the primary soundness about this 
finance. Skill in milking the Fat Kine is all very well in 
its way, where you've got them to milk, but the question 
How they became fat? is a deeper; skill in preserving, 
creating, the true rich pastures the desideratum. I have 
said before of this: 'It is not by levying toll on the Devil, 
my Chancellor, that you will find the way to paradise un- 
barred.' We want the devils chained up while still wee 



REAL CAUSES 235 

reekit imps, not left at large till big, then mulcted. In all 
those finance measures, too little of that intelligence which 
would always keep first in its eye who were the real pro- 
ducers, who the dissipators of wealth. The toiling peasant 
and the luxurious idler; he sees it so far, but this is not 
far; takes many a much more wholesale dissipator for a 
producer, and vice versa. 

During the despicable Marconi buzz of angry swarms, I 
read a report of Mr. Lloyd George's examination before 
Committee. Laughter, said the report, after one of his 
statements. Why laughter? The words, as they stood, 
were of no significance; without the (laughter) in brackets 
one would, in reading, have passed them over like a re- 
mark that the day was hot. The same words were once 
incidentally used by Cromwell in a speech he had to make 
to try to clear himself from imputations malice cast upon 
him, though except those laughers I suppose none noticed 
it. I was far from laughing; hope it was an unconscious 
sort of thing on Mr. Lloyd George's part. Yes; you, too, 
fronting slanderers and revilers in integrity's simplicity, 
felt that there were eyes did regard you; in eternity's 
stillness, men who had suffered the like, with whom you 
could modestly claim a humble brotherhood. Such touches 
could make one weep for 'Soul of a Devil. '^ 

Churchill, also, endearing Winston, pugnacious enough, 
as the British Bull-dog is well known to be, yet, they say, 
very peaceable and affectionate in the house — the private 
house, I did not mean the Parliament, where many a cur 
sits whimpering on its tail ; satisfied with one tussle selves 
two, finds bark in company the safer plan. Perhaps Bull- 
Terrier, still of the old fighting breed and dreadful of grip, 
yet more endued with moving graces and of much lovelier 
contour? Much righteous Magistrates and needy wretches 

* His description of the Kaiser. 



236 REAL CAUSES 

whom Want had driven to guilt should feel a difference in 
him, Home Secretary; and yet the iron rigour not to be 
forgotten there or elsewhere : Did not some nimhus of what 
710 'leaden-hearted, timber-headed. Right Honourable Sec- 
retary of the Home Department' might be, glitter before 
his eyes ? Too gay and lightsome, all unequal to that strife ! 
Apollo compounded with Exeter Hall, and the composite 
clay merely veined with true gold. We have chosen the 
faiths of the platforms, but cannot the sage 's mingle there- 
with, his prophecy be fairer fulfilled? No, Gentlemen, it 
cannot. It cannot fail to become compounded, but it must 
not be sought to be. The aim after it in its purity might 
have redeemed all shortcoming, even, possibly, purified it; 
but aim to combine just what pleases in it with the follies 
it banned and you'll certainly never grow wiser. In the 
Navy, too, with heart and soul he'd strive to make that 
bulwark of his country yet stronger, more efficient. And 
all the time brooding jealous enmity, preparing for the 
day when his country should unite its strength with that of 
the nescient and mean to destroy the light-loving noble. 
Oh avatar, mischance, and soul-blinding Superstition! 

For Sir Edward Grey, on the other hand, I cannot say 
that I have ever felt regard, as for these named and others 
not named. His intellect had become vulpine, whether it 
was so originally or not ; yet it would be wholly unjust and 
absurd to heap blame for the war on his single pair of 
shoulders. The task before him was so different. He too, 
is a professed Liberal; but the faith and practice which 
have served the Liberal in home matters, are totally inap- 
plicable in foreign. You cannot there go begging suffrages 
and winning by majority, though the Bidding for Allies be 
very similar, and victory in this war, if got, clearly won 
by majority, neither justice nor own might. There you are 
dealing with independent powers, to whom your gods and 



REAL CAUSES 237 

all the incense offered to them may chance to be naught. 
Variously, I know; and those who merely worship other 
gods can easily be brought into idolater's league; wherein 
likewise may be much similarity with home methods and 
Coalitions. At home, however, subscription to first article 
religious is found in all ; abroad, the one common ground is, 
profanely, mundane interest. Hence, with no man's faith 
in the ever-living interests, sight for Fact, or trust in Jus- 
tice, the compliances and artifices of this world were this 
one 's sole resource ; and he is no more guilty than the tens 
of thousands of others who have never looked beyond. He 
has never delighted in malice, and even the 'ice-cold egoist* 
is an overshot. A certain dried up barrenness and sterility 
of soul was inevitable, and as Britain's Representative, he 
has been in the full, worst, sense of the word an Egoist; 
but it does not follow that he has himself been a self-seeker. 
Nevertheless I do reckon him the black well-spot of this 
Cabinet, and individual through whose corrupted being 
world's woe has found a main sluice. He is more of a 
weakling than vicious to me, yet it is his activities have 
been of deadly quality; and with a man of more veridical 
character in his post, all things had been immeasurably 
otherwise than they are. What I think of his Policy, I 
have already said. That he did not of his own conscious 
will seek war I believe, that in humanity he sought to avert 
it ; but all his workings wrought for war, and no deliberate 
plotting for it could have done more to bring it: his guilt 
therein is shared. Grey's face is stamped; I should know 
him for an Ill-doer at first sight; yet there is something 
of appealing in it : It was the unkind fates that made him 
thus. Not one compact and framed of villainy at all, but 
drifted into the lees. Doing ill that supposed good might 
come, celestial aims lost ken of, with a thin wiry vigour 



238 REAL CAUSES 

in terrestrial; pleadings still passionate and heart beating 
humanly. 

Each member of this Ministry had had his own private 
climb, with toil and scathe enough, ere we of the outer 
public saw the Brilliant Corps emerge victorious on the 
heights, and fresh for the real conquest, now about to be- 
gin. They had been confusedly manoeuvring about on the 
tops some little while. For it was not till Asquith took the 
lead that the enchantments dissolved. The Ministry sprung 
into being, and peculiar gifts of each shone out enhanced 
by union. Something of radiancy and exultation! Here 
we are, at last, on the summits ; the unseen bonds which held 
us, mists which hid us, miraculously gone; the longed-for 
Opportunity before us, and we alert to make the most of it. 
"What hitherto we've talked and dreamt of, now we'll do. 
In Messrs. Churchill and Lloyd George, this inner radiance 
was palpable ; Sir Euf us ^ glanced it back. Grown men who 
could be boys still. And an Irrepressible which partly 
sprang from the light realms of eternal day, partook a little 
of the spirit of the sons of the gods when they have over- 
come obstruction and march sportfully forward to tasks 
more congenial, which they feel their strength easy for. 
Even in Sire Asquith one seemed to trace a quiet sober 
vein of similar kind. In those first years of his premier- 
ship, he hardly delivered an unofficial oration to voluntary 
audience without those walls wherein he did not make some 
reference to 'New Ideas': this was continually the clause 
in commendation of man spoken of 'He was open to New 
Ideas. ' "Well, do for God 's sake, tip the scuttle containing 
anybody shut ; neither run after Will-o '-the-wisps while the 
old sun remains in heaven. These things to contemplative 
mortal, such a one as New-Idealists denominate 'Reactive,' 

* Sir Euf UB Isaacs, subsequently Lord Chief Justice. 



REAL CAUSES 239 

were beautiful, hopeful, pathetic, despairful. Still only 
thereabout. So very much in all that song was sung out 
lang syne; to stable Actives, of sum weighed and known; 
whilst by the Chasers of Illusion, ihey are dismissed as 
stale, yet never known. There was nothing there of a spirit 
which really knew the day and its Needs, had come forth 
equipt for battle therein, earnest resolved for that New, 
which also dates further back than geology 's epochs. 

It was as a United Ministry that these men emerged, and 
as such that they have stood. Their Chief is the worthiest 
among them, and their loyalty to Mm has nothing of make- 
believe in it. All gratefully acknowledge that Sire Asquith 
has verily been their Sire and Bond; without whom they 
had never remained one, nor come through these seas and 
straits unwrecked.^ His leadership has not been nominal, 
very actual; and in it he has shown qualities of a real 
Captain, some 'king-becoming' virtues, nor lacked 'discre- 
tion. ' Would it not have been better if he had been King, 
or President, not at will? Better for us, and better for 
him? Who can reckon what a difference it might have 
made to him, and whether he had then seen chiefest enemy 
of man in Kaiser Wilhelm ? A ground of truth to stand on, 
*stead of falsehood, and much his by assured right which he 
now holds casual? And without the worthy Chief, where 
had the Peers been? With worthy Chief, they are seldom 
long lacking; it was never he that loved to be sole. Sub- 
ordination, co-ordination, have not these things been here? 
Not in any very human kind, I know ; most loose, free-and- 
easy, nonchalant, yet honest and perfectly genuine so far 
as existent at aU. Your oath is, you wiU never have them 
except so and casual? Then you wiU never have a Minis- 

^The reader remembers that this book was written before Tory 
malice wrecked the Ministry, and gave first public note of Britain's 
collapse. — Note of July, 1915. 



240 REAL CAUSES 

try, united or disunited, that can lead you to a blessed 
goal. This has owed its power and coherence to indestructi- 
ble instincts at variance with what it enunciates, most 
i^mntelligently professes; and it, assuredly, has not led to 
a blessed goal. 

In the Domestic Campaigns one generally wished them 
All speed, if constantly pained that they could never aim 
at anything better. Redemption by Legislative Enact- 
ments, well canvassed and voted upon in National Court of 
Pi-powder ; it is their and the world 's faith these days, but 
it never was or will be a Man's. Complete impotence to 
stir in aught moral, vital, perennial, with seldom a passing 
perception that this were so much as desirable. Occasion- 
ally, a leaving of the powerful unchallenged for open defi- 
ance of ordinance while the weaker were punished, in a 
manner which I should think even they must have felt 
uneasy shame for: 'King' Carson and 'The Times': pal- 
trier rebel or less moneyed rag. But it were vain to look 
here for a soul bent on Justice. Framing and carrying a 
Measure, getting elected to do it, by the known arts all, can 
leave little of that in the breast. Only such 'Justice' as is 
shouted for, and brings garlands to the champion of. Even 
of the problems they did confess a need to tackle, all the 
more important had to be shelved. Labour, for instance. 
Visibly hopeless to try grappling with that : still the day 's 
quarrel, and leave it till to-morrow. I do not blame them 
for not trying it: It was impossible for them; nor could 
they have tried it with the slightest chance of success. 
They were sufficiently encompassed with Futility; and are 
not the kind of men could ever cope with the like of that. 
Nevertheless, one nearly always rejoiced in what they did 
do there too. As composers of a Strike, active, prompt, 
intelligent, to the utmost of their ability; offering great 
contrast to the Let Alone. So that one was apt to fervently 



REAL CAUSES 241 

pray, Go on, go on ; do try your hand at that, even you, and 
you will make something of it that is not worse than naught. 
But alas ! how could they ? They had not the power, either 
spiritual or temporal, and every step they took only ren- 
dered their impotence in both kinds the more apparent. 
Safer to hold by Licensing Bills, Budgets, Insurances, and 
darling Home Rule, with Parliament Acts as a necessary 
preliminary if you were not to be altogether a laughing 
stock : these were the things they had manage of, and you 
cannot gather grapes off a thorn. 

After all, what is this brilliant talent; this energetic 
administration, magnificent skill in organising, and thor- 
oughness of co-operate working ? It is essentially a Business 
talent and no more. The change from Tory hebetude or 
chicane has been like the ousting of a torpid Board of 
Directors for the incoming of a Smart Set who can make 
things go. It may be much, only one stroke of human gen- 
ius had surpassed the whole of it. And had ten men, with 
the fear of God in their hearts had our nation in keeping, 
we had seen happier issue. 

The Opposition which this Ministry met at home was 
mostly too despicable for comment ; yet it was notable how 
even their degree of sincerity raised a poisonous animosity, 
out-breaking instant on the hint of integrity's might. Nor 
were the snarling curs unbacked by all the devil 's potence : 
whereby it was another time made obvious how utterly 
impossible it would be, ever to carry the least reform which 
went to the roots and touched men in earnest, by the voting 
method. One felt much sympathy with the Ministry under 
those attacks by baseless slander, and obstruction by en- 
tirely contemptible tactic. Now they and their slanderers 
have kissed, and hiss together, pouring out a flood of yet 
more baseless slanders ; themselves are filled with a venom- 



242 REAL CAUSES 

ous enmity against that nobly human, mere tinct whereof 
had made them momentary martyrs. 

Kaiser Wilhehn raised up for something great? Sire 
Asquith and Company, what are they here for? No man 
ever knows. And certainly I did not at first at all connect 
the two, nor think of these as specially driving upon war 
upon Germany. Since no division deep as hell, if wide aa 
human error, might rather in the early flush, have hoped 
approximation. It was so surprising to see any sort of 
genuine talent appear there, that perhaps one a little for- 
got for an instant how talent alone never saves a soul from 
ill course, often only speeds it the swifter thereon. Clearly, 
they were a Constellation of Merit: Which must produce 
unwonted results of some sort ? Yes. But beyond that lay 
an inarticulate premonition, foreboding and foreshadow, 
which was authentic, though I am ever shy of such things, 
know it a perilous and inadmissible practice to dwell on 
them. Man's mind does forecast of what it cannot fore- 
tell; yet shall only accept this as urgent to see, be alive to 
developments, not surrender its conscious intelligence in 
hope of occult revelation, put faith in a dreamer's prophecy. 
Later, when they seemed quite drowning in futility, or 
stewing in their own melted butter, if you prefer that de- 
scription, one thought, It was only for this then? Reduc- 
tion to absurdity, and a very climax of folly proven fool- 
ishness. Now it is too apparent for what they were raised 
up. To pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, confound 
all unity on earth ; gain a fresh lease by Crime, since per- 
suasive Nonsense would no longer serve; and declare anew 
into what frightful deeds a fanatical superstition and sys- 
temic mendacity forever plunge men. 

Yes ; they are Men of Blood these Cabinet Ministers, and 
the British who follow, begot them. No cannibal more so, 



[; REAL CAUSES 243 

as much so. To take up the facts of this universe, of man's 
life and duties in it, as they are not: there is nothing so 
spreads desolation and havoc ; the savage 's ferocity is inno- 
cent beside this. All the charities and philanthropies, sanc- 
timonious virtues, self-righteousnesses and unctuous hum- 
bugs, will not free from blood-guiltiness those who have 
done this, nor all the skills and ingenuities. In their relig- 
ion, kingship, political faiths, life's deed and conduct gen- 
erally, the British are a people sodden in mendacity; and 
none other so lay the cities in ashes, drive misery homeless. 
No brute, ripping up the womb, is such a doer of atrocity 
as the 'peacemaker' who has lied before God. How per- 
fectly they keep the tune, and show everywhere the samel 
Coax Belgium into the gap; then weep for its fate. All 
bowels moved with compassion; money and goods shall 
pour out in floods, each manly sinew be strung for revenge. 
But never a man with valour and humanity enough to say, 
Suffer not destruction for us. Thus would the Church 
* redeem ' whom it has thrust to perdition ; vends poison for 
salvation. 

But, though I say this with most solemn emphasis, and 
entire conviction, it should be clear from what has gone 
before, that I attach no peculiar blame to the Cabinet, do 
not, in my heart, judge any single member of it. Of all of 
us, it may well be said that we have a blurr, or indeter- 
minate aspect; would puzzle Minerva's owl, much more all 
Olympus to decide of any of us whether he were fundamen- 
tally good or bad. 

Nathless, in more common parlance than either of the 
above two paragraphs are couched in, I am afraid I do 
very heavily reckon the Liberal Ministry among the Real 
Causes of this war. I believe that these, more than any 
other body of men we could name, are Guilty for this ter- 
rible cataclysm; and that, were there any true Britons 



244 EEAL CAUSES ' 

capable of assuming command in their Nation, they would 
lead these to the scaffold. As it is, who is there could have 
the face to do it ? If any revulsion took place, of which one 
sees no hope, there are plenty, I know, would have the face 
to uproar, perhaps slay in mob tumult. But where could 
Court to doom them in manhood's severe equity be found? 
The prosecution would have abundant evidence to offer. 
And if, in an attorney's cunning, these flatter themselves 
they kept within the letter of the law, that would only 
damn them doubly in the eyes of the human judge. Even 
had the anti-German bias of these men, which led them to 
be everywhere opposite with her, favourable to her adver- 
saries, not been itself vicious in origin, the whole of their 
policy of subtle Entente, no Alliance, etc. : actual cover to 
France, curry of favour with Russia, practical bond to fight 
with them and pretence of impartial free hand, was high 
treason against the Maker of all men. But, apart from that 
and on a lower ground, the giving of any manner of prom- 
ise, express or implied, to support France versus Germany, 
so long as her alliance with Russia existed, was a direct be- 
trayal of our country 's interests ; the secret undertaking to 
defend France's coasts, with public announcement, for 
home and German consumption, that no obligation had been 
entered into was thoroughly traitorous. And attorney's 
quibblings do not alter facts. No obligation to fight for 
France, only one to ' defend ' a small portion of that ample 
territory: Which, if it amount to bond to fight tooth and 
nail for the whole, who shall say that we lied in our throats ? 
God's truth, sirs, I think it was in your souls, if any 
succedaneum for salt be left among you. 

Ponder that White Paper 'Case,' the moral putridity of 
men could propound it as justification of their ways, 
nation could accept it ! I grant it runs smooth and seeming 
true. As to some minds what does not ? A little reflection 



REAL CAUSES 245 

is required for the ghastly horrors it shrouds to be seen; 
and then so many would much rather not see them, prefer 
to accept without question. You must try its soft sward, 
would you know what a cess pit it floats on. And, in times 
of national excitement, when is thought ever given, trial 
made, especially by men who read in a foregone conclusion 
concurrent, want nothing save a plausible show of godli- 
ness, as demanded by the Decency Principle? What else 
maintains our pretty manikin, the King; and is not he an 
Atlas to uphold the world? The Ministry judged wisely 
their mess would be swallowed whole without enquiry, a 
right British brew; yet I do not wonder their Censor has 
been very careful none save writers of a known tenor 
should be permitted to pass remarks upon it. Never seri- 
ously name Carlyle in this relation : For if there be a rock 
on which we might split, were it not an awakening of the 
nation's sense to how we are flouting his word, half felt 
divine by all? Take his name in vain a little, avoid it 
mostly, spit not openly upon him, and the sordid mob 
shall even liken Crown Prince to Fat Boy of Cumberland, 
never reflects whose Ententes revived bygone Infamous 
Projects. 

It would be difficult, however, to say how far the Min- 
istry themselves knew their ' Case ' would bear no examina- 
tion. I suppose, in the main, they just trusted it would 
bear all it would be likely to get. Besides, the thing done, 
they had to put forward what excuse they could; and, in 
prudence, one they would not need to go back from as 
other facts became known. So just tell the facts, how 
damned so ever; the proper way of looking askance at 
them being simultaneously infused into breasts gratefully 
recipient, we shall be canonised Saints, each subsequent 
revelation add to our glory. No cunning concoction could 
have matched this spontaneous simplicity. And, if you 



246 REAL CAUSES 

will know it, this is the way the devil confesses his sins 
our days, as in others too, it was evident what a bishop 
Reynard had made. It is not probable they felt much 
uneasiness when they promulgated their 'Case,' or queasi- 
ness of conscience in creating it by act before ; the anointed 
attorneyisms, there less proudly avowed than modestly left 
for discovery, were only such as they were well practiced 
in, selves took for admirable; no worse than what elec- 
tioneering and party strife had made them long familiar 
with. A man does not feel uneasy when working in an 
element he has full manage of, feels himself thoroughly 
versed in ; sees no man worth note in his nation or among 
his Allies to whom anointed attorneyism is not wisdom and 
the common cry of curs no voice of God. 

But, behind all this of the no integrity in pursuance of 
aim, there is the aim itself : the fact of the jealous animus, 
and deadly enmity. These men were adverse to the Ger- 
man from Elemental Repugnance, that is the bottom fact. 
It was this native bias which coloured everything to them, 
and determined their acts. Their anti-German policy was 
voluntary ; they were not driven into that course, but took it 
of their own initiative. It was of their own free-will that 
they took that side, ever entered into the Continental Com- 
binations at all. At the promptings of their own souls it 
was that they abandoned neutrality to countenance the 
opposites of Germany; out of a fear of and animosity to 
Germany, with no other call, they gave cover and protection 
to her adversaries, zealously co-operated with them: And 
were thus express Causers of the war. They did not want 
war with the German? No, damn him; not if he'll sit 
quiet and conform to aU our regulations for him. Fine 
peace-seekers ! And more advantage may have been taken 
of the cover afforded than their so excellent wisdoms had 
calculated upon ? Very probably I It was of old said Bet- 



REAL CAUSES 247 

ter to meet a bear robbed of her whelps — . It is useless 
arguing that a man's native bias may be just: you never 
saw that proceed thus. This bias was vicious, that of men 
sub-conscious of self-treason; no seekers of severe truth, 
but gone after popular causes ; resolved to uphold the pal- 
pably untrue (so long as it gives them no inconvenience) 
and happy in the nonchalant insolences free to the Minis- 
ters of a Mock King ; pledged to superstition and saturated 
in mendacity; — the enmity which such men feel toward 
Fidelity, wherever it appear. Under the circumstances, it 
was natural for the evil to come to head on the Foreign. 
For at home what was there to excite their rage? When 
the counsel for each side have exhausted expletives, they sit 
down together, twin brethren of one communion. But in 
the German they saw that which they both feared and 
abhorred. Took counsel in earnest to circumvent, raised 
Combination around. "Would threat but suffice, and no 
other member of the gracious Combine use the advantage 
secured him! Not Men of Blood, then, in your esteem? 
Salved guiltless by such provisos? 

Concerning The Ministry 's conduct since the war began, 
I shall only make a few merely incidental remarks. 

That they are prosecuting it with vigour and determina- 
tion, 'managing' it with high business ability,^ and will 
not be stopped anywhere for want of resolution, is clear. 
And so long as their side continues to have enormous pre- 
ponderance of strength, supply, and they have opportunity 
to injure the German, while he has next to none to injure 
them, this capacity to keep in order and overwhelm by 
weight of numbers may suffice. With wind and tide to 
help, and all the popularities to aid success-crowned ef- 
fort, no pinch worth speaking of felt at home, however 

* The reader, I hope, understands well that such praises are meant 
for the Ministry, not for OflB.cialdoin. 



248 REAL CAUSES 

many thousand homes be ruined abroad, they may be able 
to ride through in triumph. Neither let the reader imagine 
that the skill required in these Huntsmen, to keep so huge 
and heterogeneous a pack in good heart and discipline, fell 
steady in attack on the One at bay, is a small skill. If you 
attempt to reckon the compass of it, you will find it a very 
considerable. You might prefer to be shot than to exercise 
it so, yet must still admit the considerableness of the skill; 
and the major part of it is quite invisible to you, by the 
general public never guessed at. Plainly incompetent men 
they dismiss, and choose able ; are alert and prepared for 
emergencies, ready with manifold expedients; keen in 
scheme, and energetic in execution. Sagacity is not among 
their virtues, and their foresight is of short range, material. 
No Event that a man of the world could have surmised, 
would likely take them unawares ; and none that a faithful 
soul had known probable, but would astonish. For they are 
not reverent of facts; and, beyond their counters, do not 
know the causes of effects. Of that deeper intuition and 
CEdipus skill which can make a man the saviour of his na- 
tion, there is not a vestige among them : Which is a peril- 
ous want in a Cabinet of Statesmen. But neither the course 
of Providence has ever been their study, nor its Births 
their expectation. With all that 'Ability' of theirs, they 
are capable of the extremity of Folly ; and to them Wisdom 
is foolishness. Wherefore, in their choice of men, also, 
they have no real discernment. How many times has one 
seen them exalt the utterly worthless and even detestable! 
They are called the ' Government ' ; and the first quality of 
a Governor is that he know a man, can search out sterling 
merit through its every disguise. Whereas these, properly 
speaking, can only grant to applicants; and, so far from 
seeking out the veritably worthy of high trust and office, 
would thoroughly distaste these, if they did come across 



REAL CAUSES 249 

them: But they are not likely to be troubled so, for none 
of that breed apply in such quarters. 

Moreover, it is my deliberate estimate that, however these 
men may swim customarily virtuous in success, in strait, 
they would stop at nothing ; that, were sufficient pressure to 
come upon them whilst in power, there is no crime, mean- 
ness or depravity they would not sink to. Whether the 
cloak of unctuous attorneyism would be discarded or not, 
I cannot say; the keeping of it would not sweeten. Hav- 
ing never lived in fidelity to the infinite of right and wrong, 
but only in acceptance of plausible substitute, necessity 
compelling the abandonment of their Principles, what 
would be left? Which leads me to the second of my in- 
cidental remarks; It struck me at once, though not sur- 
prisingly, having long seen it inevitable, how, the moment 
anything like a real crisis occurs. Free Parliament has to 
cast its cherished democratical self-government procedures 
overboard and drift straight toward a Convention ^ Tyr- 
anny. Nothing else for it, ever, if it is not to collapse help- 
less. And if acute crisis came on it at home, the Govern- 
ment still determined to maintain itself, you would see the 
Convention Tyranny arrive. We have had a slight touch 
of this in the Censorship ; and the nation only has not found 
this tyrannous, because, on the whole, it has concurred, has 
itself been disposed to exercise a very strict censorship. 
I, at least, could find no British publisher^ or literary agent 
even, who after being informed that this MS. did not ac- 
count the British cause all-righteous, the German damned, 
would so much as read it. The Democrat perhaps imagines 
that the nation's concurrence in a law passed on it, pre- 
vents that law being tyrannous, but he is profoundly mis- 
taken. Every law is just or tyrannous in its own nature, 

* Tyranny as exercised by * The Convention ' in the French Kevolu- 
tion — Jeov/vre. 



250 REAL CAUSES 

irrespective of what any mortal thinks of it : which is one 
of the eternal truths the democrat denies. Cromwell had 
to interfere with Free Speech, and did it * as a man, not 
as a hungry slave. ' A thing to provoke comparisons ! The 
Loose Tongue was loose enough before, loud and disgusting 
enough before; yet the Government never dreamt of exer- 
cising any humane interference with that. Nor has since. 
Not the foul chimneys on fire has it sought to quench. The 
more flames and soot these belch forth, darkening the sky 
and spreading delirium, the more filthy disgusting every 
newspaper and hoarding, the more their cause prospers: 
therein they delight and themselves ply the bellows. But 
no man shall report more of fact than they consent to, tell 
any truth they might reckon dangerous to them: lies will 
mostly help, and such few as do not can be denied with 
added credit. Is this the dealing of Man or of hungry 
slave ? 

And, along with this attempt to pass everything ad- 
dressed to their own People through a sieve, you have their 
own practice of addressing other Peoples straight athwart 
the noses of their Governments. Lord Fisher's Letter to 
the American People directly in the teeth of President Wil- 
son 's express utterances! What a beautiful piece of po- 
liteness to that President! And to the People who had 
chosen him? You might wonder how, in the name of 
common prudence and the dictates of self-preservation, any 
Government could do these things. We have had many 
examples of it, far worse than that one, as in the Boer 
War ; in fact, it is quite habitual. If a Government make 
a deliberate practice of treating every other Government as 
a thing of naught, of appealing to the Peoples not to be 
deceived by such a set of ill-doers, or foolish misguided 
persons, how does it expect to be treated itself? Mocking 
at aU Respect for Authorities in other nations, where does 



REAL CAUSES 251 

it expect to find that Respect in its own ? Apart from the 
morality of it, the thing looks like suicidal mania; and 
assuredly is suicidal. When British Governing Persons 
propose conqueriug a foreign nation, they say to the inhabi- 
tants of it: — ^We come not as enemies People! but as 
deliverers. Those who have hitherto ruled over you have 
been your oppressors. Them we wiU now oust; and, we 
taking the country for our pains, you shall see what a dif- 
ference you get in us. — They are a kind of Divine Mis- 
sionaries, then? Such is much their own persuasion, and 
very loudly their own assertion. From the earliest days, 
men have lived under all manner of Governments, and the 
records tell of many an heroical. Prince and People. But 
never till late was the true Eureka found: WE are the 
Angels of Light can heal all your woes. They answer: 
Not unto us, but our Principle. How apply it so to 
America? And in Germany, as yet, you seem rather shy 
of trying it. Not much chance of a hearing there? No 
Teuton apt to look twice at you, put in comparison with 
whom he has got already? Take a lower key: It is just 
the game. It was so we won our elections here at home; 
and, if we can persuade the foreign People, we win; if 
their Governors persuade ours, they win. Each must have 
his wits about him; try all arts to gain over the other's 
following, be 'live to circumvent his similar tricks. And 
between Confessors of one Faith no offence taken ? For the 
playing of this game is no breach of the Principles ; a thing 
done in fullest conformity therewith. The world has seen 
many queer Missionaries, confident of their own divinity, 
but surely these are among the strangest. When will they 
be put in the Museums, known only to the learned ? 

And it is for the profession of these Democratical Faiths 
by the AUies (how Russia came to be numbered among 
them, better not enquire), that America must sympathise 



252 REAL CAUSES 

vv.tti them, ban the German as an excommunicant ? Ter- 
iible forever is the Giant Superstition, with body power- 
less, shadow omnipotent.^ You Americans and you Britons 
vvijat is it save that Shadow which has made you and keeps 
you blind to substance and essence? Certainly, you will 
never see the Temple or the King ^ till the giant has got his 
quietus. 

1 spoke of the all-importance of the Way to power, and 
it is sadly exemplified here. Had there been a clean road to 
world 's honour open to them. Sire Asquith and most of his 
company had undoubtedly travelled on it ; and it is not of 
many you can say so much. They climbed to eminence by 
the ways there were, and could not Reform After: none 
ever can. Wisdom and all nobleness of character, sincerity 
and sterling manhood, had departed from them, not aug- 
mented in them, ere they came to power, by their practices 
in reaching power. From early days they trafficked in 
votes, and truth cannot be balloted for. It was by profess- 
ing allegiance to the People's Will, and not by obedience 
to the Almighty's laws, that they rose in this world; and, 
the faith they took up having entered their souls, in it have 
they culminated; no more waiting consent of the People, 
but running fast on before them, to lead indeed, — into 
deeds very horrible. Faculty! My friends, we have gone 
far, if this is to excuse. Time was when, the higher the 
gifts, the more severe the condemnation. But it is the 
greatest of tragedies, this of the capable of the good sinking 
to evil ; and, sinking more by suction of foul element, than 
any native proclivity to vice. To quote myself: — 'These 
'men whom you know, as you know the sun is light, to be 
'noble and pure, capable, it may be of the very highest, 
'many hundreds of lives of true sterling worth and sim- 

*Viele, 'The Tale' by Goethe. Translated end of Vol. 4, Carlyle'a 
Miscellanies. 



REAL CAUSES 253 

'plicity, little by little the foul popular stream sucks them 
'in; they are not conscious of their peril, they know not 
'they do ill. Man cannot live passive, who grows, not rots ; 
'without the constant, collected, and most earnest effort, 
' where were he ? They go down ; folly, insincerity, systemic 
'unveracity, ignavia, creep in; the good plants wither, the 
'foul weeds grow apace. Lovely were they as the angels 
'and the sons of heaven. Surely God will redeem them! 
'Where is their sin; how could they have known? See 
'them in a ten-year space, and where is the soul you wor- 
'shipped? Gone, and left but a wrack behind! the impos- 
'sible horror is done. You cannot love them now; your 
'sorrow turns you away; your holiest pity would lead you 
'to smite, that the spirit be released ere the hideous meta- 
'morphosis go further. 

'If a man did not believe in Justice, he would revolt, 
'even hopelessly. But it is unfathomable, though the voices 
'ever monish that all is love and justice. Thou knowest 
'not what He doth with them or with thee; yet trustest 
'absolutely. AH mortal is clay and the Potter is wise. 
'Little one, quiet thy thought.' 

This is a worse thing than death ; and let no man gratu- 
late himself he has escaped it. Cromwell, dying, thought it 
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God, 
could only trust in His mercy. But why should one sorrow 
for a Kaiser slain by these ? Not for him, though for them. 
Because such deeds are hideous, and the Race of Man is 
accountable if it lets them be done; shall suffer, even as 
they have suffered, in the following generations; victorious 
mendacity blighting souls which the banished integrity 
had led forward in severe fidelity. 

They will never be charmed: I do not dream it. No! 
Yet is it not our hope that others, inclined to similar drift, 



254 REAL CAUSES 

may bethink themselves in time? Yea, be saved from all 
inclination to drift, and never put in such jeopardy. 

in Carlyle 

If any complain that the War is going out of sight ia the 
latter part of this book, my answer is: Not out of sight. 
But, if your study of its Real Causes be faithful, the War 
itself must more or less recede into the distance, perhaps 
even assume the character of a mere Episode in world- 
drama. On the other hand, in so far as the war is really 
found to be a crisis in world-drama, the thing fought for 
verily of vital interest to mankind, it must rise in impor- 
tance. If it be a pitting of Government by such men as 
can gain the Mob's vote, gone into league with those who 
sway by the Jesuit's subtlety, against Government by men 
of a human Volition, determined to take on this earth the 
rank due to the Intelligent and perform the duties of these 
in stem fact, alone truly merciful, then it is indeed a Great 
Struggle, and one for the gods to watch, for men to do or 
die in. Yet more so, if it be a pitting of Mendacity with its 
Mock-Kings and Make-Believe Religions against Veracity 
with its Real Kings and Faith in All that is True, naught 
that is false. But, indeed, it can hardly be the one without 
being the other. If it be a pitting of Mendacious Democ- 
racy against Brutality and Ambition's Lusts, there is 
nothing Great in it, howsoever many thousands die ; and I, 
for my part, would never wittingly have wasted time in 
speaking of it, nor cared which way the victory went. 

In all that matter, Carlyle long ago spoke to you far 
better than I can; and, had you heeded his words, this 
War could never have been. But, in this little section 
headed with his name, I propose to refer only to two points : 
Namely: 1st. How you are not now living and fighting in 



REAL CAUSES 255 

Ignorance of the truth, but in Defiance of it. 2nd. The 
significance of the fact that so much of Carlyle's life was 
devoted to the portrayal of German Men and German His- 
tory. 

1st. Not in Ignorance, either Nation or Cabinet, or, if so, 
then wilfully. This was no unknown writer, but one whose 
name is familiar to all the Teutonic Races, at least ; whereof 
the British is one, though there have been some among 
them who have claimed descent from the 'Aboriginal Sav- 
age ' ^ more glorious. Perhaps might now wish, on example 
of the Slav, to change their cities' names, own him for 
parent stock? Carlyle was unchallengably the wisest and 
noblest of all recent Britons, and one of the Inspired Sages 
whose words live through all time. Yet, by the Nation and 
the Cabinet, those words have just been uneasily shuffled 
past; dumbly known unanswerable, the safe course is, keep 
on and hope they'll be, if not absolutely forgotten, at least 
never acted on. Several Members of that Ministry are di- 
rectly aware of him, — and of the shuffle, national and par- 
ticular. He is the One whom they know does stand, unre- 
movable as Teneriffe, in irreconcilable contradiction to the 
Unanimities they worship ; before whose revelation of man- 
hood 's majesty all the gods of their idolatry are visibly 
dirt, — even when moulded by the most consummate artists 
and so polished that the flies do not stick to them. Marry, 
he has all the other inspired with him; from Adam down, 
every one. But then they all lived before our new apoca- 
lypse, so can be plausibly pretended no disbelievers in it. 
"Whilst he — ; what he thought of it is too indisputably left 
on record. He is thus the Sole Opposer of their Supersti- 
tion whom they cannot pass over in contempt or explain 
away. Accordingly, they have simply to let him stand, no 

* Smelfungus' description of the Celt. 



256 REAL CAUSES 

other shift, and trust in providence no harm may come to 
them from so unwelcome a Presence not to be got rid of. 
And yet it is precisely from him that they have mostly 
drawn whatever is true in their own inspiration. Uncon- 
sciously, who can say how much? Consciously, just so 
much as they could contrive to combine with the popular 
delusions they dare not and would not abandon, queasily 
aware how uncombinable it was. Wherein is the misery 
and the sin ; that, with the living truth before them, they 
strove either to give it the go-by altogether, or to strike a 
profitable bargain with it. Through Carlyle men like Lloyd 
George and Churchill might have found what their souls 
needed to make them in all points Men. They had the 
Capacity; and, had they had the Courage and Fidelity 
likewise necessary, they had come out fully Equipt, clear 
in heroic insight, nobly resolved, and clothed in a grace had 
silently taught the due of man to man. None of the good 
things they have spent their lives to further, but they had 
then known the good of twice as well, and not been lacking 
in knowledge of those far weightier matters of the law 
without which all these are as naught. It is miserable! 
thrice miserable ! From the depth of my heart, I say to 
you: You do not know Carlyle. By your own and others' 
sins, his face has remained hidden from you. You have 
misread him, written word and life's deed. Else had your 
souls owned him. Yourselves, each true victor in private, 
been fit to lead Domestic Campaign of another aim ; wherein 
the appointing of one just man a Judge on circuit had 
shown itself to you more than the carrying of a whole train 
load of Bills Labour Problem not a thing to be left till 
to-morrow, but entered upon instantly with the sternest call 
on all the intelligence and manhood at your command. 
Britons able to front Principalities and Powers, a world 
in arms if need be, instead of huddling up with Slav and 



BEAL CAUSES 257 

Celt in dread of one Lonesome Teuton stalking large 
through the vacant chambers of a timid imagination. 

But, alas, if the Ignorance do, in a sense remain, it is no 
longer innocent. It is by sin that it remains. By whose 
sin, there is no reckoning; yet certainly by sin. And the 
wages of sin are always paid. If the living truth had not 
been before these men, there for them to read if they would, 
their guiltiness had not been near as great, and neither had 
they run near as far in guilt: they owed part of that bad 
speed to antagonism, to a Defiance of the truth, nor was 
even a conscious Defiance entirely absent. To shuffle past, 
to persist in an impious delusion, after the truth of the 
matter has been declared, itself is an acting in defiance of 
that truth even though there be at first no ill-will toward 
the declarer to the truth. I should have said 'after a while,' 
for all we know there was plenty of both ' at first ' ; and the 
shuffling tack not resorted to till the unremovability had 
become indisputable. But the enmity, if it ever really went 
out, was always certain to come in again; and in a worse 
form than before. I said 'Despite — perhaps to spite' ! Such 
is the fact. In the whole of the men, in or out of Parlia- 
ment, in the general soul of the British who are not mere 
self-seekers, but who would in some sort live by faith, there 
is a more or less distinct consciousness that, unless they 
can get round Carlyle, they must come to grief. In the 
silence, they have flattered themselves they had done it, or 
were accomplishing it; whilst, in fact, only proceeding in 
the greater confidence, in that completely vain endeavour. 
Their aim has been and is to conclude that he in the main 
was wrong, whatever items be accepted, themselves in the 
right ; the Faith he shattered still sound, invincible (though 
Churchill had trepidations) for further conquest, man- 
kind 's sacred light and guidance. For that he lived in, they 
have no eye; yet are rootedly opposed to it. At this mo- 



258 EEAL CAUSES 

ment, could they but, by hugeness of Combination, weight 
of gun and tonnage of ship, prove that that man lied, then, 
think they, they were whole founded as the rock. Dread- 
noughts superlative, without one foe left on the globe. 
Yet I would warn the Gentlemen that, though many a 
Banquo may be blood-boltered there is ever some Fleance 
'scapes: No true victory to be come by in that manner of 
warfare. 

It is this change from Ignorance of the true to Defiance 
of it, to determined hostility to it, which chiefly character- 
ises present day Democracy. It has been long brooding, 
but Britain's atrocious onslaught on Germany, sequent 
upon long course of policy leading up to that onslaught, 
is the first great public outbreak of it. In other forms, 
which of us is there has not met it sufficiently, seen it daily 
in every quarter? Democracy, born of Revolt, did for a 
time rebel against what it was very needful to rebel against. 
But it is not now rebelling against any earthly power. It 
has set up its own gods, and endeavours to enforce the 
worship of them; excommunicates who will not bow the 
knee to them, hates none so much as the true worshipper 
who will not, and bands itself with any to cut down him. 

2nd. It was merely in that search after Saint's wells, 
which in some epochs, is so forced upon a man, that Carlyle 
first went to Germany, — not in the body — and, finding 
such his fortune, something more than a wet rope with 
cobwebs sticking to it, began to linger, to sojourn, and to 
draw up the buckets, wherefrom he drank Waters of Life. 
For the words of THE GERMAN came upon him with the 
force of Revelation ; and it was through the aid of Goethe 
that the Open Secret first became Open to Carlyle also. — 
To Churchill & Co. it remains shut, with the Devil's Head 
flaming on the door. And the Americans, I understand, not 



REAL CAUSES 259 

finding that adornment sufficient, have, since 'Piracy* be- 
gan, painted up the Skull and Cross Bones underneath. 
Cheered by which phenomenon again, Churchill & Co. are 
doubly resolved to keep the door shut, starve the Devil 
within. Possibly they may manage it. But the door I 
began with is described as having ' no locks or latches to be 
lifted.' Pity Churchill & Co. could never find their way 
through so easy a wicket : which had so saved them and us 
all this tremendous to-do. It has, indeed, invisible guards, 
and, if easy of passage, is not of discovery; the Flaming 
Head and Gruesome Sign themselves great obstacles, — 
especially the painting of them. — And it was not Goethe 
only whom Carlyle found, found mildly regnant and rever- 
ently loved, in Germany. He knew Goethe 'Alone in his 
generation', as the like of him have ever been. The world 
has never seen two such suns in simultaneous meridian: 
very rarely has the rising, as was there the case, been so far 
up as to be able to exchange mutually recognising saluta- 
tion with the setting; more commonly several generations 
intervene, sometimes whole ages. No : he found many other 
men whose workings were part of the Eternal Concord, 
strikingly in contrast with the jar found elsewhere. In some 
few, a deep true perception of Man's Whereabouts in the 
Time flood, and a general trend toward a victorious solution 
of the sphinx enigmas, which made him hope the world 
would soon ' grow green and young again. ' Later, he knew 
it would not be soon ; and did himself put in the grandest of 
all the contributions toward solution. The commencement 
of that Contribution was his deliberate endeavour to make 
those Germans known to his own countrymen, even as they 
had become known to himself ; and the last great item in it 
was his History of Prussia: his Spirit, brooding in the 
deeps, produced that for the crown of his life's toil. It 
is very certain these things were done through a divine 



260 REAL CAUSES 

leading on, sprang out of the Great Unconscious, were 
done in obedience to the Unfathomable Premonitions as well 
as the Intelligent Perceptions, and I think it is a fact of 
much Significance that he was led to do them. 

In which, as I think, there are the two things. That he 
consciously chose these tasks as what his soul told him 
needed to be done : That the Power, which shapes our ends, 
rough-hew them how we may, shaped his so. The more 
so, that to him, as a Briton, those writings on German 
matters were rather out of his course than in it. It was the 
Bible of English History which Carlyle wanted, and he 
grumbled always to his German friends, ' What had / to do 
with your Friedrich?' Yet the ever ruling Providence 
insisted, It is of him you must write. Merciful God! — to 
liken little things to great, and if I be suffered the inter- 
ruption, — what remotest thought had I seven months ago 
that I should ever write a word for German versus Briton ? 
What an utter recoil to overcome before I could make a 
beginning, and for some time after it was made! But it 
had to be done; should the leaves be used in a jakes, or 
left to moulder unnoticed. Carlyle 's conscious purposes 
were of very wide range, the deepest ken. As records of 
the Past and then Present, his writings on Germany and 
Germans were alone priceless; full all of the ever-living 
wisdom. He had many thoughts of Germany in the Future 
also, which he did not utter, which only a seeming chance 
word here and there gives any hint of. But all deed done 
by a man, in a really high intelligence of what he is doing 
and why, is likewise done in a simultaneous consciousness 
he neither knows what he is doing nor why. Was it just 
to leave an indestructible record, before her overthrow, of 
what Germany had been and was to his day ? Whereby, it 
may be added, every earnest thinker of the days to come 
would be perfectly certain to doubt the overthrowers ' ac- 



REAL CAUSES 261 

counts of their triumph, be led to search the facts, and — 
Leave his record of the Blot of Infamy from which the 
Briton never recovered; 'bondman with and to his allies, 
confessed no more a self-sufficient, and with soul bound 
in sin,' went down, as the perpetrators of such deeds have 
ever done? Is it a prophecy of what Germany is yet to 
be in the Future; a record of sterling foundation, and tes- 
timony to new inspiration well competent to build much 
more thereon; a thing done as in obedience to divine man- 
date that men might know in which Land and Eace it is 
that the spirit which can go forth conquering and to con- 
quer is now most present? I confess I have always leant 
to this latter; and hoped against hope, that the Briton 
would meet Brother, not turn to foe. Of his clapping 
up a league with All and Sundry, and wantonly attacking, 
Proud Leader of a Pack, I never dreamt till he did it. 

Prophecy of Germany in the Future ? That was a thing 
dark to Carlyle, as to us. He saw in her grounds for 
hope and for fear, as is always the case. During one of his 
last visits^ in the body, he met examples of 'Four Hundred 
Quack-power, Portentous to behold ! ' Ere long he saw her 
united beyond hope; victor over vain insolent neighbour; 
and Protagonist in world-drama. How far he foresaw that 
the Bad Neighbour would try her accursed machinations 
again, with all the world to back her and Britain leading, 
I do not know. Maybe, that, perceiving well what course 
those two nations (France and Britain) were pursuing, he 
did deem some such thing probable. If so, could only have 
hoped for Germany that her strength might not be wanting 
to her, nor her wisdom be far from her, in the day of her 
trial. I said, in Proem, that it was not for us to say 
what Carlyle would have thought of to-day's events; but 
of this we need have no shadow of a doubt : That he would 
have utterly condemned the conduct of Britain and her 



262 REAL CAUSES 

Allies. The British, Nation and Cabinet, are there, at 
least, acting in a very express and conscious Defiance of 
him and the facts he left clear and certain. But beyond 
all surmises of machinations. Combinations for or against 
were the deeper prophecy, the intuition granted only to 
the pure and just, that in Germany, if she kept true to 
herself, was the Promise of Man. For the //, it remains 
while man is mortal. Neither was it Carlyle who ever 
thought that One, however just, must always prove earthly 
mightier than all opposites: The answer to that is, as 
every Christian should know, You may destroy him, yet 
he conquers. 



m. 

MENDACITY VERSUS VERACITY 

In its Preliminary, I fore-explained the course of this 
Chapter thus: 

'Opposition to Germany, innate in the British, the Real 
'Cause of their going to war with that nation: Which we 
'may divide into three: British Jealousy of Germany's 
'increasing power: Trial of Strength No. 1. British con- 
'stitutional abhorrence of all actual Sovereignty, existent 
* in Germany alone of nations : Democracy versus Autocracy 
*No. 2. British saturation with Make-believe, faith only in 
'Transparent Humbug, fearing and detesting an unequiv- 
'ocal Manhood that does not believe truth dangerous, dares 
'by what it knows: Which Manhood, if not found in 
'Germany, where found? Mendacity versus Veracity No. 

And also wrote: 'Witness Entente, witness Royal Will, 
'per order, witness that black pool of horrors, THEIB 



REAL CAUSES 263 

'RELIGION.' Yes, it is there you approach nighest to 
origin. Poor Grey may have been a bit of a sluice, Asquith 
and Co. put vigorous hand to the levers, but this is the 
flood of Hell-waters itself, the great lake and bottomless 
from which the rivers of vicious contention, the sordid 
delusions, deeds vain and impious, flow. The Mock Kings 
and subtle Ententes are mere practices of the Rotten 
Within. 

I have elsewhere written of this, as I cannot here : made 
such Confession of Faith as able. And, if you care to 
know aught of that, must refer you thereto. Confession 
of Faith is sometimes right, most needful ; but, once made, 
it is another sort of Confession that is wanted, namely deed 
in it, and no more talk of it. Emerson much mistook in 
supposing it desirable to do nothing save continually 
reword it. God is great, my dear "Waldo, — Let us, whether 
highest Seraph of the Morn, or doomed dog in unwholesome 
pits, accept that fact; and discuss it no further. Vain 
forever is the attempt to announce Nature's Apocalypse. 
Thus is the reader warned that if he do have curiosity 
enough to search out my Confession, he will not find it 
a revelation from Patmos; nor any sort of catechetical 
answer to "What am I to believe? supplied to him. I have 
there said: 'Man in Society springs out of Man in the 
Universe and repeats him in every lineament.' As your 
soul is toward God, so will your conduct to your fellow 
men be. Which, you see, is no very novel conclusion. At 
the same time, till Faith be got, I fully admit, it is the 
one thing needful — To insist on? Perhaps; only How? 
There will never more be a Credo, and subscription to 
article is a thing of the Past. Carlyle made his express 
Confession in his Sartor; and believed for long, if not 
exactly that 'all men had understood it,' which he well 
knew they had not, yet 'at least that they had,' in a 



264 REAL CAUSES 

sense, 'understood it in him.' But no Spiritual Optics 
could have revealed it to eyes which would not see it 
without, nor a tithe as well helped those with eyes to see 
it to greater clearness as his after deeds in it, sans further 
exposition of the Highest which cannot be uttered in 
words. Those who would not leave their Jewish Old 
Clothes with Teufelsdrochk in Monmouth Street would 
not have disrobed had the Au revoir of Latter Day ^ 
Pamphlets not remained final word. 

The Eeligion, the professed and indeed the actual Reli- 
gion of the present day British, who can describe it? A 
century ago the general honest trend was toward an oven 
and declared Atheism, with, of course, ditto Anarchy in 
civil polity. Carlyle taught a different. But the British 
neither came through with him, nor have proceeded in the 
honest trend. In their terrene obliviousness to things celes- 
tial, they have arrived at such a professed Religious Faith 
as quite beggars description. We have just been studying 
their Mock-King procedures ; but nothing they do there 
equals in sorriness and ' blasphemous mendacity ' the solemn 
farce they play in and with their Churches: What they 
do there is only the more or less incomplete realisation of 
the Unholy Idea their souls live in bondage to. One can- 
not call it a compound, this Religious Faith of theirs; 
time was when it was called 'an Amalgam of "Christian 
verities" and modern critical philosophies, which was and 
could be nothing else than a poisonous insincerity ' ^ ; it is 
a Collection of known Incompatibilities set up alongside 
each other, to be simultaneously believed in, in a common 
consent not to quarrel about them; remains a poisonous 

^'Latter Days,' 'Penultimate Ages; the days 'before the last.' 
What a meaning in these words to the earnest Briton who looks on the 
Britain of to-day 1 

' Froude. 



REAL CAUSES 

insincerity, perhaps surpassing the Jesuit's in damnability. 
If you were to ask me to point out a Briton who, like 
Kaiser Wilhelm, felt the need of firm ground to stand on, 
I might be at a loss; but I could name many who busy 
themselves in endeavours to mould the unshapeable muck 
into some sort of Presentability, such as the Decency Prin- 
ciple demands for Soul's Apex as well as Constitution's. 
Presentability is, in truth, here, as in that White Paper 
'Case' and elsewhere, about all they seem to feel the least 
need of; and their Services, etc., are normally, quite se- 
renely decorous. In which view too, the elite do not regard 
those attempts at new moulding with favour: Be but 
perfect enough in your deportment while aworshipping and 
the beauty of the god shall so shine through you that none 
dare question his divinity. The god of one ancient nation 
is described as resembling three whale-cubs combining by 
boiling, set up, whether on its head or its tail difficult to 
determine, as the Supreme of this Universe for the time 
being. Similarly, the modern British have a pleased per- 
suasion that, by much boiling and kneading^ a combination 
has somehow or other been effected aloft; does now look 
down with blessing from its father-throne on the earthly 
one they have made in its image. And, if you assert the 
achievement of Compound in this sense, I in no wise deny 
it ; but if you ask me to accept it for a Living Unity — ! 

Religion an incoherent jumble of incredibilities persist- 
ently accredited can never be anything except a fountain 
of death. Look at any of those Cabinet Ministers, for 
instance, individually; it was in their passive acceptance, 
instead of active rejection, of that unspeakable mess, they, 
like the rest of us, were fed with by way of soul's light, 
that their perversion began. "Without that original breed- 
ing in falsehood, begun at the mother's knee, when they 
were still pliable saplings, they had never as Men taken 



266 REAL CAUSES 

up with Vox populi, so plainly as much Vox Dei as they 
ever heard from a Minister of Religion. Can you, can you, 
my most earnest of readers, can you in your soul and con- 
science now, blame them for finding the Stump-Orator as 
excellently discoursing a mouth-piece as he in the Pulpit? 
The one led them to the other; and, as they outgrew the 
effeminacies of the Nursery, they were promoted to the 
more masculine exercises of the Forum. The pulpit, how- 
ever, still retained an uncertain claim to ascendancy, and, 
in any case, hardy pupils shot up into spheres which more 
tax stamina, would not be haughty contemptuous of early 
pedagogues, gratefully paid tribute. Lloyd George has 
frequently done more, exhorted these humble helps to do 
their duty : Great f urtherers you, of our high schemes for 
mankind 's progress ; an you will but do your holy mission 
rightly, there 's none on whom we set a higher value. Burly 
Churchill I do not, at the moment, recollect addressing 
surplice — Lloyd George found most favour with the cas- 
sock, but that is nothing to the point — ; just performed 
the kow-tows when necessary and with the proper subdue 
of nonchalance. Would hardly find a Dreadnought there, 
I think, should he search never so devoutly ; might a Brow 
of Brass that would pass for such with him, though even 
this is extremely rare now-a-days, a mighty tame race, 
no gelding better schooled in the mincing paces befitting 
station. There are some among the surplice squadrons who 
can capriole very prettily, and of the dog distract we need 
not speak ; some who wear the cassock have so approximated 
to the once noisier brother of the forum that nothing save 
the uniform or plain civilian dress denotes which beats 
the drum ; but still it is, in the main, just as befits various 
station. Mr Asquith, of course, smoothly pays what 
honour custom prescribes, and from his soul. Never a 
Mock King lacked Holy Churchmen for his saintly props; 



REAL CAUSES 267 

neither have Premier and Primate any quarrel, or none 
in public unbecoming. Indecent Exposure is the rarest 
of misdemeanours, not to say cardinal sins, in British Sup- 
porters of the Church and Throne. One half may cry 
Vox Dei, the other Vox PopuU; but, these cries being 
known synonymous, there is no cause for serious discrep- 
ance. Only those earthly frictions natural where the party 
which gets its inspiration at second hand claims prece- 
dence; the directly inspired fashed with waitings for the 
other to translate their oracles, delivered now in the vulgar 
tongue, into that sacred dubious which gives them double 
force. But indeed they are learning to do this for them- 
selves now : No Synod of Bishops could have brought out a 
* Case ' more sacred dubious than their White Paper one. 

For this accursed primary falsehood, adherence to a 
Lying Religion, vitiates a man's whole being, turns all his 
deeds to evil. And the hardier pupils, who have burgeoned 
out in rougher airs political, have, in a way, become more 
adept in the Church's black-arts, than if they had entered 
her orders. They have retained the soul of Cant, yet 
utter it in a new dialect of their own, not yet become 
foisonless to mascuHne vigour; and Faculty quickened the 
Rotheap's moulder into crime. This last was inevitable, 
if Faculty did re-appear there, as one little expected it to 
do. The source of the sin of that Liberal Ministry lies in 
the fact that they were never individually, man by man, 
bred up in a heavenly Faith, nor ever cleared to such by 
own strength. To none among them has the eternal sal- 
vation or damnation of man's soul become the Great Fact 
of human existence ; they have never aspired to the infinite ; 
no ideal of heroic manhood has ever glowed before them; 
and of them again it must be said. What they have is but 
inherited. They are merely Remnants of the Past, in 
that sense; and, cast whoUy in the Fashion of the Hour, 



268 REAL CAUSES 

have of the vital faith, could lead themselves or us through 
life's perplexities in true honour, nothing. All zeal for 
mohs ' gospel, hustings morality in home campaigns, specific 
enmity and jealous-fearful plottings in foreign policy, 
are but corollaries. God is great, and these are not of the 
School of the Prophets. 

If the British have misread Carlyle in matter political, 
it is because they first misread him in matter religious, 
and have continued to do so. It is strange what a blindness 
afflicts them. 'I thought all understood this, or at least 
understood it in me. ' ^ Who would not have done so ? 
It was clearly enough declared for ear that would hear 
But none did. Not Emerson; much less Euskin; Froude, 
yes, at his best, but with such a fitfulness, wavering and 
weakness. And the failures of these gave sanction to baser 
conceptions; left them undenied, partly endorsed, free to 
grow. What ridiculous and sordid conclusion has thus 
become current ! He, who had as clear, whole-founded and 
ethereal a faith as ever man had before he addressed his 
fellows at all, is supposed to have lacked this; to have 
been — I know not what. Those secondaries with their fol- 
lowings" would have 'explained his errors,' thanked God 
He ha/J given wisdom to babes while He left the Mighty 
unprovided, etc., etc. ; and propounded their restricted 
pure, their feeble no and half-solutions, their continued 
endless peddling makeshift nonsenses, in lieu of that Rev- 
elation for Man long before them. Unseen, unseeable by 
them, and growing ever more so ; he silent, diligent in 
works, before such inevitable sequel to early pass over 
unkenned. 

Mendacity. We do use this word in its proper dictionary 
meaning; but, through the constant use of it by Carlyle 

* Carlyle in letter to Emerson. 



REAL CAUSES 269 

in describing post-Jesnit phenomena, it has come for us 
to have an intensity of meaning which, without contradict- 
ing the dictionary one, has so carried that to the full limit 
of its force, that we have become shy of using the word 
to describe anything less horrible. We see the thing, and 
Mendacity has chanced to become the name for it, the only 
word which satisfies. Carlyle said of the black-militia of 
Unsaint Ignatius: 'They have given a new substantive to 
modern languages. The word "Jesuitism" now, in all 
countries expresses an idea for which there was in Nature 
no prototype before. Not till these later centuries had the 
human soul generated that abomination, or needed to name 
it. ' So is it here ; an old substantive has been used by him 
to designate a state of soul unknown till after the Jesuits 
had done their deadly execution. Habit of lying, deceit, 
untruth, falsehood, none of these are of equal force ; Men- 
dacity goes beyond them all. A man may be a rogue, a de- 
ceitful knave, a lying bloody-minded villain, a miscreant 
full of all subtilty and malignity, and yet one shrink from 
branding him ' mendacious. ' Use the word in its full com- 
pass so, and Shakespeare, for instance, gives no example of 
a mendacious person. Not, among all his characters, one, 
I think. lago is not thus mendacious ; for when he lies he 
knows he lies, and he calls his villainy villainy. The near- 
est approach which Shakespeare makes is in the Catholic 
Prelates of Henry V and Richard III; but even these only 
faintly prophesy of a thing which has since become like a 
life atmosphere, for a while. A mendacious person is a 
person who lies in his soul, and differently to his father 
the Jesuit, whose practice rather was to lie to his; for he 
eschews diabolical doctrines and does not believe in secrecy, 
that is, experiences no need of it in the common consent 
necessary to his existence. He believes, and sure enough, 
in the 'salutary nature of falsehoods, and the divine' 



270 REAL CAUSES 

efficacy we must write, not 'authority' as Carlyle did of 
the Jesuit, * of things doubtful ' ; but the falsehood and the 
doubtfulness must be quite well known, all the gods of his 
worship, Transparent Humbugs, and he is thus never 
haunted with the least dread of being found out. If any 
murmur Humbug! rise, he answers, not quite in plain 
English, Why, my dear sir, we aU know that; but, etc. 
Did you say you had not your proper share in it ? If you 
can make that out, the injustice shall be righted on the 
earliest opportunity. Sorry that the pressure of other 
important business prevents me from being able to fix a 
day for hearing of your case. He is no hypocrite, does not 
seek to disguise his doings, to hide his soul from his fellows, 
or pass himself off for what he is not. He is thoroughly 
persuaded that he is — ^what men desire him to be, un- 
troubled with a misgiving that Heaven's King can any 
more exercise veto upon majority than the Vice Regent 
he has so well in hand. Of ' the true, genuine, indispensable 
sentiment of self- estimation ' you will not find much in 
him, unless you add, 'corrupted into self-conceit and pre- 
sumption,' but then such a confidence in the power of the 
Decency Principle to convert the foulest whore into the 
chastest of goddesses as was seldom seen before. The whore 
is not required to put away her sins, only to wear some 
regulation gauze and learn decorum. 

A life atmosphere, I said. For the thing we call Men- 
dacity can scarcely be in any unless in all but all. It is 
entirely devoid of self-sufficiency and never took a resolu- 
tion to stop at nothing, though so long as with the drift, 
there is nothing it will stop at. It is a Spiritual Plague; 
long endemic, which has infected high blood as well as 
low, not a pravity peculiar to individuals. And there is, 
I believe, no nation upon earth in which it is so terribly 
prevalent as in the British of our time. I shall not 



REAL CAUSES 271 

attempt defining it further; it is a thing to be seen of the 
spirit. Those Mock-King procedures, and White Paper 
'Cases' are good examples of its practice, but the all-damn- 
ing fact of the British is, that they have put their faith 
in Mendacity, become mendacious in their very beings. 
So the Sultan's suzerainty of Egypt is at an end! How 
many souls did it send to perdition whilst maintained by 
them, not him, the impotent, with Khedive British approved 
for iwcapacity? Wherever you turn it is the same. And 
they are so smooth and virtuous about it all, perform their 
iniquities with such an unction, that half the world admires 
as at some godhead, strives to copy. Each citizen, with 
too few exceptions, bred in Mendacity from infancy, I do 
not know what Truth the British, as a nation, would to-day 
unitedly live and die for ; but what a zeal they can have 
for an Evident Falsehood, properly apparelled and suit- 
ably presented, this hour witnesses. Had the Falsehood 
not been evident, they would have been suspicious, much 
too worldly-wise to stir at any call of knight-errantry; 
had it not been so arrayed that the first sight ravished 
their fancy, they would never have kindled. But such a 
glorious Transparency as Grey and Asquith presented them 
with was wholly irresistible. They cried at once. Out other 
selves, our oracles, our prophets! Now have ye. Teuton. 
For we do both know why and have a Tale to tell must 
gain us more than absolution. 

Veracity means accordance with fact, as Mendacity dis- 
cordance. A veracious man is simply a man who en- 
deavours to live in truth as his one salvation ; who when he 
does unwittingly depart from fact, makes all speed to get 
back into contact, so soon as he discovers himself to be out ; 
who, when he wittingly errs, repents: in either case, he 
never loses instinct that in truth alone is salvation possible 



272 REAL CAUSES 

for him. Whereas a mendacious man is precisely he in 
whom this instinct has become entirely obscured : he shuns 
contact with fact, as if it would be death to him, and puts 
his whole trust in a made-up righteousness; under no cir- 
cumstances can he do without a Buffer State between him- 
self and Deity. No doubt this too is a genuine indestruc- 
tible instinct for self-preservation, — considering who his 
deity is. There is war without discharge between these 
two : Veracity has an implacable abhorrence of Mendacity ; 
and Mendacity a deadly enmity to and fearful dread of 
Veracity, which, also, almost always leads it to provoke 
battle. 

The British, as a nation, are mendacious ; they have long 
lain asleep in the Devil's Pickle, and have by no means 
yet got out. Are the Germans, as a nation, veracious? 
Who could answer with complete confidence? One thing 
is certain, that they have not undergone a two or three 
centuries soak, to saturation to the marrow. The question, 
therefore, with them, is not Have they got out, but have 
they kept out? And this alone is an immense distinction 
in their favour. Neither have we at all forgotten that there 
are many other ways of sinning besides that unreserved 
relinquishment of march for soak, — sometimes succeeded 
by a certain vigour in swimming; nor that it is with 
Ambition 's lusts, no wallow in company, the British charge 
the Germans. For the British charges, I care nothing; 
and of the other ways of sinning can only say the while. 
They may be very serious, but they are one and all venial 
in comparison; and, as the world stands this day, there 
is the cardinal whereon all minor do hinge. The German 
may have drunk of the damned brew, till, with all his wit, 
he could not tell whether the moon had three horns or four ; 
but this is a long way off permanent saturation. We shall 
never be free from diseases. 



REAL CAUSES 2R^ 

'While man's desires and aspirations stir 
'We cannot choose but err.' 

— Goethe. 

And the question is of that unwearied aspiration which 
has never said to evil, Thou art good, forever gives promise 
of redemption. 

The British were, and continue, very heedless of that 
German literature of the latter eighteenth and early nine- 
teenth centuries which Carlyle so recommended to them. 
They are ready now to say, Oh yes, that was verv grand 
indeed; but it has all gone out, and left no successor. To 
which one might reply: Firstly: It has no more gone out 
than the sun has, and you show a sorry notion of its 
quality in imagining that it could. Nor do I merely mean 
by this that a true star remains in the j&rmament. No; 
I also mean that the virtue of the men who made that 
literature remains in the German nation. For they were 
accepted of it, not rejected; and, accordingly, the truth 
they taught has become the inalienable inheritance of the 
People they addressed. The German may be familiar with 
Goethe from his childhood, go to him as to an acknowl- 
edged Seer and his nation's proudest name, just as cer- 
tainly as the Briton is seldom familiar with Carlyle at 
any age, reads him mostly as a singular phenomenon, 
much of a Curmudgeon, and not half so wise as he might 
have been had he taken counsel. Certainly, on the whole, 
rather an entity to glory in; 'struck by the lightning,'* 
and 'for a purpose.' ^ Oh, doubt it not; the Deity's ways 
are inscrutable, very praiseworthy, in this instance, too, 
the scarred condition affording such a wholesome warning. 
Perhaps it was for our sins, surely for his own ; and, with 
divine punishment visibly meted, men can have no unchar- 

* Buskin. * Cook. 



274 REAL CAUSES 

itableness toward him. Secondly: In regard to the no 
successor assertion, one might ask the British, Where is 
your own successor then? What man is there among 
you who has a True Word for his fellows at all, whose 
voice rises in any wise as one more in the Eternal Concord- 
ance? Learned Professors and successful Journalists, 
these are they whom you can number by the score. And 
some Lord Morley, by the bye, giving dinner in honour 
of one of the latter, recently knighted, could speak of their 
demagogue power, express pious wish they would use it 
for Peace. He did not, of course, call it demagogue 
power, and one does not quite know whether he looked to 
the Concert for maintenance of peace. But we do know 
that he knew the drift of things and the share which 
knight he was dining had therein; that he resigned his 
seat in the Cabinet when war was declared, and that the 
new-dubbed knight was Sir E. T. Cook. Perhaps that 
little post-prandial incident, accidentally remembered by 
me here, might better put you on the trace of Why Britain 
Is at War than the knight's zealous propaganda since. 
Merely a straw floating on the surface of the stream, I 
know, yet indicative which way the current was flowing. 
We must leave that of the successor a moment. 

The German literature referred to was contemporaneous 
with the French Revolution and Napoleonic convulsions, 
with British hebetude, hide-bound formalism and Byronic 
protests: It is not without an effort nowadays that you 
can realise that fact. It silently appeared and flourished in 
a still strength, unbenighted by the Effete Dominions, un- 
disturbed by the Brawling Uproars which shattered them. 
Seldom, I think, were there so many genuine Philosophers 
in a nation, who, during a time of world-throe and inter- 
national crisis, possessed their souls in patience and mod- 
estly pursued their high callings in peace. They under- 



REAL CAUSES 275 

stood their French and British contemporaries, though 
these had not the slightest ken of them. They were stable 
in a sincere faith, lived in the perennial, and quietly ex- 
hibited a Reverent Inexpugnability of soul, which was their 
own and their nation 's salvation in that hour, and of bound- 
less promise for the future. For these were thoroughly 
awake to their Whereabout, knew their own day, its perils 
and perplexities, freely gave their lives toward the con- 
quest and solution of these ; they foresaw the New-birth of 
all things and in spirit lived in its day-spring, as well as 
journeyed through that twelfth hour of the right they 
knew themselves abroad in. Far ahead of the British and 
French, who went a-gadding in vanity or sat lazily a-dozing 
in worse till convulsion struck them, these had half gained 
the inner victory before the outer shock came. Since it 
came, the delirious political faiths of those whom it struck 
into a confused earthly activity, wherein the very con- 
sciousness of any need of a spiritual has been obliterated, 
have gone round the globe, and infected the numerical ma- 
jorities of all nations; but it is an immense fact for the 
Germans that they, as a nation, had made a commencement 
before these delusions swept over mankind, such a com- 
mencement as cannot well have stopped, howsoever tem- 
porarily obscured. For those men were not examples of 
what merit could still reside in the Old; they were clear- 
sighted Leaders in the Van. 

The Reception which Goethe and Carlyle respectively 
met with, has always been a thing of profound significance 
to me. Goethe came and lived no upholder of Orthodoxy in 
any shape or province, a most fearless speaker of the very 
truth, severe and entire; his serene Beauty that which 
only crowns a soul of the deepest Earnestness, collectedness 
for duty and most unshakeable Fidelity. Yet he reigned, 
through a long life, the gratefully Accepted of his country- 



276 REAL CAUSES 

men, who sought to learn from him as from one to whom the 
Inspiration of the Highest had certainly given understand- 
ing. Carlyle, as supremely endowed with Wisdom by the 
Almighty, and of as wide a compass, could not be denied 
'intellectual supremacy' after every effort had been made 
to deny it in him ; lived, through a long life, the mark of 
every obscene projectile and opprobrious epithet which 
could be hurled at him; in all deepest essentials Rejected of 
his countrymen, who only accepted what they could no 
more deny and found convenient, always under protest. 
If you have any understanding of eternal law, of vir- 
tuous or vicious disposition in men, their innate affinities 
with good, or proclivities to ill, you will find the significance 
of these two Receptions inexhaustible ; the determine, as 
nothing else could do, what manner of men the respective 
countrymen addressed were, whither they were tending, 
Godward or Devilward. 

Unless, indeed, the Manner of the Address itself go 
deeper still. The British, I am very well aware, make it 
their excuse ; but, in fact, it is it that damns them doubly. 
They say (when it pleases them, for in general they speak 
of Goethe, also, in quite another key than this) the German 
Poet's address was sunny mild, gentle and sweet, persuas- 
ively recommended the True and gave offence to nobody's 
susceptibilities ; Carlyle 's fiercely denunciatory, unwarrant- 
ably severe, outrageous, arrogant, etc., etc. Neither state- 
ment is true : Goethe was severe enough whenever he found 
cause to be so. And to speak of Carlyle as chiefly given 
to blasting the false, instead of recommending the true in 
the widest and most loving humanity, is to talk nonsense. 
The fact is that both Addresses were delivered in a spirit 
of Equitable Justice, and the several Manners suited to the 
Peoples addressed: the sooner the British take that fact 
home to themselves the better for them. No noble man 



REAL CAUSES 277 

ever chose Rebuke as a sort of dictum best becoming to his 
mightiness; and Carlyle's nature was loving ethereal as 
any poet's, 'easy to be entreated' as any Apostle could 
require. The British plea is very much as if a set of mis- 
creants should blame a Judge for passing remark upon 
them in tone and word other than that with which he 
would lift up his voice in choral symphony with saints to 
the praise of his Creator. 

And now I will add the remaining word anent successor. 
Those Britons, who assert that the Great German Liter- 
ature of Goethe's Epoch has not been worthily maintained 
since, do not in the least know, are no judges of such a 
matter. But, granting the assertion true, my own reflec- 
tion would be. Does not that lie very much in the nature 
of things? If, by worthily maintained, you mean main- 
tained at an equal level, or anything approaching thereto, 
you are suggesting such a miracle as the world has never 
witnessed, and is never likely to witness. But beyond 
that: In the nation, as in the individual, a Right Word 
is only uttered after long silence, and is ever again suc- 
ceeded by long silence. Progressive assimilation of the 
uttered Wisdom and steady diligence in worthy deed con- 
formable is not to be concluded absent upon that account. 
Very far from it ! Similarly, is it not in precisely the same 
reflection that I yet have hope for Britain? Of Carlyle's 
Word I have written : ' If the new force be unable to arrest 
the sordid tide, it goes out of sight again ; falls silent for a 
season, till the crop of its sowing in virgin soil begin to 
show. Moreover, it is now writ down as a thing known, 
to be dismissed with a word ; its ulterior issues foreseen, 
it is decreed felonious; sure only that it is at all moments 
increasing, and will reappear in might when the days are 
accomplished!' Yes; in the English-Speaking Races, if 
not in Britain; if not in them, then in others: Die that 



278 REAL CAUSES 

cannot; it is henceforth part of the inheritance of all the 
Just, and can only disappear from the earth when there 
are none of these left. 

Verily the vital question of Germany is, How is she in 
her Religious Faith? Complete clearness from all Fabled 
Revelations and heroic piety in the pure fact of Man in 
Nature must be attained and forever maintained. Without 
the endeavour toward this there is, as it were, nothing. 
Germany, as a nation, has not attained it. We heard of 
four hundred Quack-power, very portentous ; likewise of a 
Kaiser sometimes reduced to pile-driving, not satisfied, he, 
with the ware offered in the shops about, though the 
British possess not a doubt that their horrid stews are 
amply sufficient to secure salvation, by affording cover for 
all sin they may have a mind to commit. But are the 
Germans honestly struggling toward it? that is the ques- 
tion. For, as their own Schiller said. Truth never is, 
always is a being. 

As the world stands, it is not possible for Germany to be 
veracious anywhere unless she is honestly progressing in 
that inner conquest. It is because of their mendacity in 
their religion that the British are mendacious in all other 
things. And we do find the Germans veracious. Consider 
the things I have described a little under head of German 
Kaiser: British King. Is there not a difference there 
between the German and the British deep as the founda- 
tions of, at least social being, a difference strictly infinite? 
And I have not disguised the failings, or the counter-ac- 
tivities ; know that, with a nation, it is the net sum which 
tells. Again, is not that our hope for Britain, that there 
are counter-activities in her also ? But, as the two confront 
so, it is not there 'a plague o' both your houses.' In the 
one, truth is a ' being ; in the other truth is non extant, and 
a horrible composed and unctuous Mendacity supplants 



REAL CAUSES 279 

her. Consider those "White Paper Despatches: The Ger- 
man ones are not those of a Cromwell, or even a Friedrich, 
but they are true, so far as they go ; and the more you study 
them, in the light, not of the British Mock Interpretation, 
but of the Facts, the greater will your admiration of them 
be. Whereas the British despatches are Anointed Humbug 
from one end to the other; a sanctimonious persistence in 
their self -created 'Case,' unvisited by a thought that their 
all righteous mightiness may not create and insist on just 
whatever 'Case' it pleases, let the truth of the matter be 
what it may. Look at German word and deed since the 
War began — But it is hardly possible to do so through 
such a dust cloud of rumours, lies, and angry mutual 
recriminations as prevails at present. So far as one does 
catch a credible glimpse, however, the same thing strikes 
one : Namely that German word and deed correspond toler- 
ably. Whether you esteem the deeds right or wrong, — 
and, for my part, I suspend judgment almost wholly, — 
there is no lie, no general lie; whilst, in the British, the 
substratum of sacred falsehood is rarely absent. It is 
these things which draw my sympathy, in which I see 
hope. The British breathe 'unconscious mendacity,' — 
which is something conscious too, only resolved not to be; 
but the German ring true, gentle or savage. True. If the 
'Modern Hun,' dubbed before his deeds were committed, 
in order that nobody might make a mistake about them, 
were a reality, instead of a creature of imagination, one 
could almost welcome him as an answer of the just gods 
to subtle Entente no Alliance and the soddenness of soul 
which generated that Conspiracy. Grant the brutalities, 
the lust and ambition charged against the Germans true, 
these would not brand them irredeemable. Many a right 
noble man and nation has been guilty that way: but none 
noble ever breathed Mendacity as their soul's sustenance. 



280 REAL CAUSES 

or went out to war under such Transparent pretences as 
the British have to-day done; one could rejoice to see the 
victory of any Genuine over that; it is the true World- 
Ogre. 

You perceive, then, that when I say I find the German 
veracious, I by no means necessarily mean that I find them 
a Nation of Saints. Charges of ferocity and deeds actually 
terrible, would be no manner of hindrance to their being 
Saints. British outcry at the German for 'brutality,' is 
after all, a feeble weke, weke, compared to what they 
raised at Cromwell, would raise again were the like of 
him once more among them. But, to be direct, I do not find 
them a Nation of Saints. And it may be that the attentive 
and receptive reader is a little perplexed at my simulta- 
neous insistence on the need of progress toward a pure 
religious faith for veracity, and examples of what he 
probably reckons a very low form of veracity. I will 
advise him to meditate the matter, for I do know what I 
mean. Perchance the road to that Faith, for a Nation, is a 
longer and rougher one than the reader wots of. So ac- 
customed as the majority are to believe it spread with 
butter. Men, in their eyes a Nation of Brutes, might be 
further advanced along it than many of a more pleasing 
exterior. I grant completely that the British appear every- 
where clothed in the Decency Principle; and they little 
know, that is, never will look at, what it covers, holds 
together better or worse, how utterly it owes its mainte- 
nance to concurrence in falsehood, and is in no sort a vital 
force, — which a brute 's lusts still are. Let me take another 
example chance-offered: My newspaper yesterday quoted 
a German paper as saying, in regard to some friction 
between Austria and Italy, 'Moral considerations and com- 
plaints must give way to political necessities ! ' Shocking ! 
You would sooner have torn your tongue out than got 



REAL CAUSES 281 

up in Parliament and made so plain a statement of your 
opinion? That moral considerations and complaints must 
give way to political necessities was a clear rule to Britain 
interfering in the Balkans, but the Concert had to be 
proclaimed a Sacred Court of Equity for the Distribution 
of Justice and Maintenance of Peace, else Grey had not 
dared to announce the interference, nor would the Public 
have sung his and the Concert's praises; — neither unless 
the rule had shone through the transparency. That moral 
considerations and complaints must give way to British 
jealousies and animosities was a clear rule to the Entente; 
but, without Belgium coaxed into the gap and made a 
holy martyr of, Grey and Asquith could not have called 
on Britain to draw the sword in righteous vengeance; 
neither without the Transparency. In view of these things 
I can imagine many a man devoutly eschewing all claim 
of righteousness in his cause, preferring any dialect to that 
of such sodden abomination ; and could welcome the lowest 
form of veracity as a blessed change. Know, moreover, 
that the lowest and the highest forms of Veracity are 
indissolubly united; that wherever the one is, the other is 
not far off. 

I have before given my own express denial to the state- 
ments that Brutality is a characteristic of the Germans. 
May here add that I perceive with joy that there is in them 
a grimness which may yet deliver Europe from much deadly 
twaddle. Rheims! I am sorry. But I would rather all 
Rheims were rased from the earth than one of them were 
continued to be worshipped in. 'Catholic priests shot in 
Belgium,' I hope not, without good cause; know of few 
likelier to give it; from personal experience can say I have 
seldom set eyes on carrion fitter for the gallows than 
even those same. Apart altogether from the question of 
the German's good or ill administering of the Lord's jus- 



282 EEAL CAUSES 

tice, this is sure: Leave those 'thrice deleterious torpid 
blasphemies ' judicially unpunished. Nature has means yet 
to bring the blood of the guilty thereof on their own 
heads — and yours. 

Veracity: Mendacity: Are not all quarrels which are 
of vital concern to Man between these two ? And can there 
ever be any doubt which will have the ultimate victory? 
There can be none. Neither is there any doubt that Men- 
dacity may often have much temporary victory and can 
do enormous evil before it reach those Pits of Destruction 
it is always speeding to. It is the part of every veracious 
man to endeavour to shorten its date and prevent its ill 
deeds. Moreover, always: 'Our Hope is not built on the 
fact that injustice cannot live, but in the faith that justice 
shall: the former is a foregone certainty; the latter only 
proven as the men which hear it in their hearts are forth- 
coming: They must be here, and they must be here in 
number and power sufficient; otherwise the law of Justice 
for Man in Society gives the victory to the evil, as what 
the Society, on the whole, merited. 

If there be in Germany as a nation, a seed of divine faith 
born direct of the soul's own consciousness, not relying on 
any manner of Report, but verifiable by each worthy in 
the Here and Now, or honestly progressing toward this, 
then, though she may be defeated, punished for sins none 
mortal is without, or for reasons known only to heaven, 
and by the far less worthy, yet she can hardly be destroyed. 
No ; in that case, Wisdom will be in her, her Strength will 
remain to her, and her Power will spring again, more thein 
recovering all loss. Yea; and in that case, I fear it is 
probable she will have to fight Britain again, and perhaps 
again, but she is not likely to another time have to front 
such a Combination as now. Britain, having superciliously 



REAL CAUSES 283 

refused, and even rejected all Peer's welcome, covertly gone 
into feud, and made most wanton onslaught, backed by 
all the Legions she could contrive to make common cause 
with, or wheedle to her aid, has now so declared herself 
the jealous-fearful Foe of Germany that, unless she and 
her pack can verily cripple that nation beyond recovery, 
she will have to suffer the penalties. She will have to 
suffer the penalties in any case : But I mean that, this foul 
mendacity and jealous enmity having now broken out into 
such Overt Act as we are witness to, Britain will sooner or 
later be as Mr. Churchill phrased it, ' swept into the Past' 
by Germany. It is a sort of arbitrament, often long pro- 
tracted, which has been tried many times, yet I know no 
instance in which the ultimate decision went other than 
one way. Neither do I know of any instance of Repentance, 
of return to veracity and brotherly equity, once things had 
gone thus far. Is there any faint glimmer of hope remain- 
ing that the British will give such instance? At present 
they seem bent only to do the cripplement to their satis- 
faction. Apparently in some perverted imitation of the 
Psalmist, who, when given his choice of Penalties replied : 
The Pestilence then: Is it not better to receive evil from 
God than man? 

I. Common Guilt of the People 

There has not, I think, been many a wrongful war the 
Guilt of which was shared by the People, by the whole mass 
of the nation, in a degree at all comparable with that in 
which the guilt of this war is shared by the British People. 
I reckon the British People far more blameworthy than the 
People of France or Russia. Nay, I am even inclined to 
say that the Guilt is, if not by any means restricted to the 
English, yet greatly the worst in the habitants of that part 



284 REAL CAUSES 

of the little island of Britain which lies south of the Tweed. 
If you twit me with being of the race which inhabits north, 
I cannot help it. There, I say, is the Focus of Iniquity; 
and, at every remove from it, both the intensity of the evil 
itself is less, and more palliating circumstances come in. 
From south to north of Tweed is so small a remove that 
the difference is little noteworthy, perhaps ; yet even there 
it may be that the spirit of Malignant Mendacity is less, 
that of Support the Empire more, in evidence ; whilst when 
you cross the oceans — ! Nothing can absolutely excuse 
concurrence in evil, yet, where there is any worthier spirit 
in the concurrer, palliating circumstances do extenuate. 
The Scotch, as a race, were for long nothing like as men- 
dacious as the English, though I do not know that they now 
fall much short of them in that bad particular; and, cer- 
tainly, they cannot ; in the present instance, plead that the 
truth was more hidden from them than from a Londoner, 
Colonials can better plead that it was. The Mother country 
has got into quarrel : We accept her account of the compli- 
cated, and to us distant, half -intelligible. Why and Where- 
for; determine to support her zealously. Obviously, the 
farther you are from the centre the more possible it becomes 
to be honest, or partially honest, in this attitude. The same 
applies with equal force to that distance, half-intelligence 
which is due, not to miles of space, but to social status and 
undevelopment of intellect. Mark weU, however, that, 
though many an honest may thus have decided to support 
his country, fight for her, die for her, not one could take 
up the Why and Wherefor supplied him as a thing satisfy- 
ing to his conscience, much less preach it abroad as a gospel 
truth. No ; one and all of the honest who have decided so, 
have done so dumbly, in a mere hope or trust that their 
country's cause was just. And, truly, except it were the 
quite unlettered peasant boy, I do not know how any hone«t 



REAL CAUSES 285 

could have such hope or trust ; how it could be possible for 
an earnest Briton to go out to this war in a whole founded 
assurance devoid of misgivings. Britain does not to-day 
appeal to the earnest of her sons, nor so much as ask these 
to fight for her; not all Recruiting Campaigners have 
uttered a word could move the souls of these, unless to 
abhorrence. 

The guilt is always shared by the People ; it is only the 
degree in which it is shared that varies, the how, and direct- 
ness or indirectness. If a nation is led and commanded by 
bad men, it is forever its sins, sins of omission if not of 
commission, which have brought that curse upon it. But 
the degree is obviously affected by what proportion of the 
total number of the People it is that concurred with these 
mischievous Persons in Power. And thus there are the 
questions: How far did they concur in the evils, knowing 
them to be evils; how far were they deceived, and guilty 
for being deceivable ? Frequently, large part of a viciously 
governed People has not been concerned in their governor 's 
misdeeds, has entirely abhorred them: the nation, as a 
whole, has not been reverent enough of worth to get better ; 
yet a respectable and resolved minority has been present, 
who knew what abomination they suffered under, refused 
to partake in it, wrought constantly for its removal and 
thus still gave promise of national redemption. Even in 
times of the worst Jesuit ascendency, this has been true; 
the nation's hope not ended till the persecution of the 
minority, their difficult extirpation, has been 'successfully' 
carried through; they released from sorrow, and that na- 
tion's fate finally sealed. Those minorities had faith and 
flinched not. There are minorities now. I have said that 
I have hope in Britons still could tell yon Ministry, there 's 
your home, pointing to kennel the while. This minority 
has faith, but ii is a minority in such a minority as never 



286 EEAL CAUSES 

was; and I never said I have hope it would have present 
power to speak so with effect. There is also another minor- 
ity much larger, I am convinced very much larger, than 
the unanimous millions suspect, hut it is without faith and 
is not resolved ; therefore so impotent, utterly overridden. 

So much then, for the direct Guilt, and the nohle not 
guilty, however suffering. The Indirect is twofold: That 
which is due to a whole life's conduct, such as raised the 
Unworthy to power, though his ill deed be still seen ill and 
detested: That which is due to deceivability ; and deceiv- 
ability is also a thing which is determined by soundness or 
unsoundness of very soul. Both these run very deep ; and 
the degree of guilt, in that unconscious raising of the Un- 
worthy power, may be very great, though, as long as his ill 
deeds are still seen to be ill, it is not damning ; but persis- 
tence in a life 's conduct which has that result soon obliter- 
ates such perception, and then the guilt has wrought dam- 
nation in you. Similarly, the degree of guilt in deceivabil- 
ity may be anything, from almost nil, down to that same 
bottomless mendacity which lives wholly in deception, as its 
one means of safety, solacement, and self-approbation, cre- 
ates its own transparencies and worships these as veiled 
Deity's face. 

The British People share the guilt of this war with their 
Government to a terrible extent in all three forms, run to 
the height in both the latter. As, indeed, the indirect 
method is everywhere that of their choice. Saturation in 
Mendacity is spread through every rank; and, except it 
were, the "White Paper 'Case' could never have found ac- 
ceptance ; rather, could never have been brought into exist- 
ence. By a nation of men bred in integrity, it would have 
been met by as instant overwhelming an indignant a repudi- 
ation, as it was met by unanimous applause. None living in 
uprightness, veracious of soul, but would have utterly 



REAL CAUSES 287 

eschewed that palpable Mockery of Faith and visible Sub- 
terfuge of vile jealous Enmity. I have scarcely found a 
man of articulate intelligence who has questioned it ; neither 
one humblest honest who has given it credence. A poor 
woman of my acquaintance, one of whose sons was already 
in the army (another she would neither urge to go, nor say 
a word to in dissuasion), could not believe what she was 
demanded to; she was staggered, perplexed; endeavoured 
to ' do her work as usual ' but found ' it often came over her, 
as a thing she knew not how to endure' ; she has arrived at, 
no clearness, but all the huge Proclamation, which the 
* educated ' of the district have swallowed whole and poured 
out again as ungainsayable proof of the righteousness of 
Britain's cause, remains to her an Incredibility. She 
knows not how to deny it, but it is not conceivable to her 
that that could be true. So is it bound to be everywhere 
and forever. Simplicity cannot answer the doctors, but it 
has an alchemy against damned falsehood. I, by the 
by, have never said a word to that woman concerning the 
right or wrong of the war. A Literary Agent, whom I did 
address anent this present M. S., replied, that he hoped I 
would excuse him; 'it was only after very considerable 
thought that he could bring himself to realise the wicked- 
ness of the German attitude.' Cook, too, concluding his 
Life of Ruskin, remarks, that for his part *he prefers to 
believe' so and so. There you have it. "Who prefers to 
believe will believe — nothing, and be persuaded by what 
pleases him. Who brings himself to believe wickedness 
will — undoubtedly do so. 

Yet despite this complete Incredibility to honesty, I never 
had a doubt that the notorious ' Case ' would be accepted as 
it has been. We have not here a nation deceived by cun- 
ning men in power, worthy people imposed upon, zealous in 
honest mistake of the facts. One knew at once, how it 



288 REAL CAUSES 

would be swallowed whole with pious unction; a morsel 
superlatively suited to British digestion; knew who would 
be zealous and how far, as they felt the warm glow spread 
in their inwards; who would stand passive, murmur con- 
currence, and in solitude chew the cud with dubitations 
many. The active man of business, the clever professional, 
the shopkeeper, and the day-labourer, the solid pater- 
familias, and the grey-haired widow full of Church; one 
never had a moment 's doubt how each would variously take 
it, and in their several manners, join the chorus. For the 
British commit these iniquities morally, in accordance with 
their regular customs and daily habit of life. Their pat- 
ronisation of France, and snub of Germany, covert ma- 
chinations under a smooth show of virtue; their lordly 
righteous Infamous Dictation of Terms, and Dastardly On- 
slaught in pretence of Holy Avenger of Wrong, when those 
Terms were not conformed to; were all done in precisely 
the same spirit as their Religious Worships, Mock-king Loy- 
alties and Social Reformations : These things emanate from 
them spontaneously, as the natural expression of their 
being; in such works it is that they think to justify their 
wisdom. And in such spirit, not of grace, it is they have 
so cultivated Decorous Mendacity that it is now bred in 
their bone ; in it do they rear their children, to know God 
in nothing. 

Where Peoples in whole are thus guilty, one cannot but 
feel that the Punishment the Peoples merit will come upon 
them. The Punishment is sure to come sooner or later, in 
one form or another; but I have a more particular drift 
just now. When I hear of a Scarborough bombarded, of 
unarmed merchantmen sunk, — But be clear first that I am 
not arguing in favour of such deeds, though, to be candid, 
I do not know how I should have acted, if in the same 



REAL CAUSES 289 

predicament as the German.^ But I am not here speaking 
of admirable or unadmirable, pardonable or unpardonable, 
German methods of warfare. No ; only partly of methods 
of warfare I too much fear probably in any genuine Pro- 
tagonist in present act of world-drama, partly of results all 
too likely to follow from present conditions — ^Well, when I 
hear of a Scarborough bombarded, of unarmed merchant- 
men sunk, and the like, my reflection is not, — alas ! no, it is 
not Poor cattle of Nineveh! It rather is: Probably there 
was no man or woman among them who was not guilty. 
And, in some moods, my sorrow is less for such 'innocents* 
than for the brave soldier slain on the battle-field. These 
fates do not fall by individual 's merit ; Providence is very 
vicarious that way; they fall by the broad general, and 
there, I say, my reflection is often as written. As of Cabinet 
Ministers one could say. They deserve to be sent to the scaf- 
fold, so of the * innocent' People, They deserve to be shot 
without mercy. It is a terrible truth, but it is one. No 
Friedrich could to-day commiserate populations suffering 
for the 'Ambitions of Persons in Power' — It is not that 
Avatar we live under; it is the Peoples themselves who 
plunge headlong into wars, 'led' by such demagogues as 
are eager to do their bidding. A demi-god would not to-day 
see the guilt only, or even chiefly, in Westminsters, have 
heart full of pity for the populations. He would have 
heart full of pity for both, but his countenance would also 
be stern to both, and his terrible judgments would fall on 
both. What then of sinful, fallible mortals; and the 
instinct of fact without intelligence ? Is it not awful ? And 

^ No certainty. Moreover, when I wrote, I had heard of German 
submarine warfare, etc., solely through British report of it — mis- 
report, as was always evident enough from the frantic character of it. 
I have since come to regard that warfare as forced upon Germany, 
and justified in the main. — Note of July, 1915. 



290 REAL CAUSES 

does it not better become us to endeavour to learn the 
meaning of a thing than to shriek over it? 

Carlyle wrote to Emerson that the New Age was not to 
be of Butter; that he fancied it would be harder than steel 
for a long time to come. He saw, with the eye of prophecy, 
men fiercer than the old Buccaneers descending on Emanci- 
pated Populations, of various complexion, and dealing with 
them in a very savage manner; men who in their savage 
greed would know no mercy. Spoke of the Scavenger Age 
to come; of the depraved condition of the Populaces, of 
Nobilities that were only Washed Populaces ; of the wrath 
of the gods towards sothood and mendacity ; of the supreme 
strength of the clear shining Sunlight, and of the twinship 
therewith of the Lightning descending in torrent which 
desolates. 

There are these three things, which it would be well for 
us to know thoroughly and be able to distinguish ; for they 
are simultaneously existent, very intermingled, and much 
liable to be confounded one with another. 

1st. World-wide Populace essentially lawless, mutinous 
of spirit, full of a vicious Wantonness ; faithless, inconstant, 
uncommanded, disobedient; anon furiously storming in 
some Bedlam Faith ; lying chronically in a state of torpid 
beastiality and sodden godlessness, dyked in, or spell-bound 
by the mystical power of still-enduring Custom, but which 
on opportunity would gambol forth at once in deeds of 
atrocity could vie with anything in the world's history. 
And the similar spirit of vicious Wantonness in the Washed 
portion, whose delight is to act the oldest sins in newest 
ways ; equally fit for open atrocity, if the bonds of Custom 
be slacked. 2nd. The ferocities which are not aimless ; the 
savageries committed by men with a resolute, stable pur- 
pose, whether just or lustful. The deeds of men not careful 



REAL CAUSES 291 

what means they use to gain their ends ; more visibly cruel 
in war than in peace, yet not more damnably so. And the 
acts of men who are intelligent of diviner quest, whose souls 
do seek the good, yet have not been purified to chivalry in 
all prosecutions of it ; with those which all but all commit in 
the heat of action, or under continued strain. Also the ruth- 
lessnesses which are strictly justified by the circumstances. 
3rd. The grimness of temper in men going out against 
Principalities and Powers, fronting solitary a World-in- 
arms. And the terrible severities of men doing battle with 
those Populaces, with bottomless mendacity, and the spirit 
of mutiny. Very stern will their souls be ; their laying on 
of the whip verily such as Cromwell 's was a small matter to. 
The corruption of the ancient Roman time was redeemed 
by the all suffering Christian. It is true, of course, that 
the Christians were only passively all-suffering till grown 
in number and power sufficient to use force. After that, 
they did conquer by force of arms as well as force of soul ; 
and their methods of doing it were severe enough. Never- 
theless, there is a vital difference to-day. The evil to be 
conquered both within and without is totally different, and 
the power which can cope with it is different. The Roman 
sank in brutality and venality, wallowed in every descrip- 
tion of Lust, gave unrestrained vent to all Violence of Pas- 
sion. And the Christian, thus particularly contrasted, 
taught meek continence, soul contemplative, fixed on things 
not of this world ; his subsequent outer conquests were made 
more instinctly in fidelity to wider facts than he could give 
account of, than intelligently at the command of his faith 
and philosophy. The Modern has sunk in Mendaciousness 
of Soul; he is frightfully encumbered with the dead and 
rotting Body of Christianity, his vital forces poisoned there- 
with ; he holds by decency of behaviour, as if his salvation 
lay in it, yet the evil propensities, and lawless animalisms 



292 REAL CAUSES 

are not mastered in his State, and the veils grow daily 
thinner; he is thoroughly insubordinate, and much that is 
basest in man 's nature is by him sanctified into a Principle, 
to be zealously promulgated and fought for. And the men 
who can redeem and conquer this, foreknow that they have 
got to do both; they do not by word or act preach retire- 
ment from the world, but the most strenuous activity in it. 
Eeverent, veracious, and of a compass beyond what was 
ever known before. 

The true ' all sufferance ' of the Christian is imperishable, 
will be found always henceforth in the noble of the earth ; 
and the Christian Religion, as Goethe defines it, can indeed, 
be subject to no dissolution, must remain forever the strength 
of man, whereby he can rise again from any abasement. 
But it will merge, and lose name. I do not look with favour 
upon attempts to continue the name. Christendom was. 

A spirit terribly severe, which will visit the sins of the 
People on the People ; yet measured, high, and truly merci- 
ful, seeking to redeem rather than destroy; full of that 
self-reverence, from which reverence for all others is in- 
stantly unfolded. — For precisely as you see your own soul, 
must you see the souls of one and all; and as you see, in- 
stead of mis-see, must needs reverse. The lowest wretch 
is then loved, and divine brotherhood seeks to help him to 
himself ; concerned for his defilement, not the poor slur he 
casts on you. Since, even as the majesty of your own soul 
is known to you, so must your sympathy be quick for the 
defacement of any other. — A spirit fully resolved, in the 
name of the Most High, to take such intelligent charge as it 
can of this earth and its Populaces, well aware that the 
authority of true god-made superiors can never be re-estab- 
lished without fearful struggle, long-protracted, fluctuat- 
ing, most bloody ; but which is sick of the abomination of all 
abominations, and one life 's evil worth complaining of, the 



REAL CAUSES 298 

rule of the Baser over the Nobler, determined that wherever 
it has power to make this cease, it shall cease. Alas, sirs, 
such a spirit is but a being. It has been, and now is in 
individuals; but it is a very long and rough road to it in 
Nations, where its deeds will be confounded and inter- 
mingled with the lawless horrors. The smallest, crudest, 
incipience were more than welcome. It is thither we must 
strive; there, and not in Democracy's Ba'spels, lies our and 
the world's salvation; and all that is even unintelligently, 
or half intelligently, forwarding progress thither, is blest 
in comparison with all that withstands. ' German Doctrines 
of Violence, ' etc. They may be very crude, but they are not 
the unmitigated savageries the British name them. As I 
said, they are something as mere antidotes; but I believe 
there is a germ of living truth in them, which will yet 
purify. The Germans likewise have better Doctrines and 
Practices, such as it were the height of insolence in me 
to speak of as crude. Remember too, that no Christian 
came up to his prophet, and many of the Saints were very 
infirm, little saintly, in the modern acceptation : but they all 
bore the great Prototype in their mind's eye, strove to 
assimilate his revelation, and this it was which gave them 
such a saving grace, made their lives more profitable than 
those of many of native worth superior who lacked that 
grace. They were narrow, and excluded from their com- 
munion many who would have partaken had not the truths 
they stood for been denied. Do you suppose, that if those 
Christians had not consciously had any Prototype, yet still 
tended in the same direction, exhibited the same conduct, 
this would have altered the fact, prevented them from being 
the world 's redeemers ? It would have greatly modified the 
fact, but not reversed it. Deification also, and all attribu- 
tion of more than human inspiration is of the Past : Rever- 
ent recognition of the supremely noble of men as supremely 



294 REAL CAUSES 

noble, a worshipful emulation of them, gratefully endeav- 
ouring to make the manhood which they have realised our 
own also, is of the Eternal. How many Germans perceive, 
with the religious fervour and devout all-suffering, all- 
daring resolution, inseparable from the genuine perception, 
that in Goethe and Carlyle the world has already had the 
Concrete Exemplars necessary for its redemption; that 
these men won the Open Secret, led the way into the bound- 
less kingdoms of the future, and have now made it pos- 
sible for every earnest man to have the Faith he needs to 
make him in all points a Man; — how many Germans are 
completely aware of this, diligent in deed in that Faith, I 
do not know at all. But I believe very thoroughly, that the 
German Nation is eminent above every other for advance 
toward that Faith and deed in it; that the present world's 
war upon Germany is due, in its central essence, to the fact 
that she is so ; that this enormous Combination against her 
is the perennial attempt of the Infidel Legions to crush the 
One in whom their instinct warns them the rising Might 
of Man most dwells. 

ye British, who believe in butter, see how your churn 
runs blood to-day! You hope that, after this last great 
effort to destroy the believer in steel, it shall henceforth 
drip only with the cream of all kindness ? So say the devils 
ever. Salvation lies not in smooth mendacity, damnation 
does. Pity it is you would not consider what a boiling 
chaos and true Medea cauldron it actually is, which the 
brave have to shape into a cosmos, the nations emerge from 
new made. You might then have been one to help shape, 
instead of one to plunge all nations in, to whirl the mad- 
der, in furious united oath no shaping shall be, but Trig- 
laph worshipped in his proper ugliness. To you, he is the 
Supreme of this Universe, to be adored with upturned eyes, 
and psalmody from all the swineries. 



REAL CAUSES 295 

I will close this section on the Common Guilt of the Peo- 
ple with a word of Goethe's, in Bayard Taylor's rendering, 
which may a little voice the feelings of many troubled at the 
Penalties which fall upon the People for that guilt. 

PATEE PEOFUNDUS 

'Around ue sounds a savage roaring, 
As rocks and forests heaved and swayed. 
Yet plunges, bounteous in its pourings, 
The wealth of waters down the glade, 
Appointed, then, the vales to brighten; 
The bolt, that flaming struck and burst. 
The atmosphere to cleanse and lighten. 
Which pestilence in its bosom nursed, — 
Love's heralds both, the powers proclaiming, 
Which, aye creative, us enfold. 
May they, within my bosom flaming, 
Inspire the mind, confused and cold, 
Which frets itself, through blunted senses, 
As by the sharpest fetter-smart 1 
O God, soothe Thou my thoughts bewildered, 
Enlighten Thou my needy heart.' 

— Last scene of Faust, second part. 

II. Dubieties and Certainties 

I spoke of these in the opening paragraph of the Proem ; 
and what I meant, ought by now be as clear to the Reader 
as I can make it, without special word thereon. There is, 
also, the next chapter. I have made no statement of the 
truth of which I am not convinced; and wherever I have 
doubt, I have shown that I have it. 

In the main, but not without large exception in both 
cases, I have Certainty in regard to the British, Dubiety in 
regard to the Germans. Necessarily : By the Circumstance 
that, being myself a Briton, I have far greater knowledge 



296 REAL CAUSES 

of the British : By the Fact that Dubiety is quite inevitable 
in whoever has such hopes of the German as I have. We 
know the doom of the false; we have faith in the true. 
None can say what the Living will grow to, or what his 
fate will be. 

The utter wrongfulness of Britain's action in going into 
this war, is a thing perfectly certain to me. She has made 
her own confession openly before the world, and is damned 
on her own evidence. There is not one word in this book, 
which I have written, of German justification of Germany, 
of German condemnation of Britain : it is a Briton 's assur-^ 
ance you have here, that of one who has never asked the 
German for his Defence ; nor experienced the smallest need 
to have it; to him the British Prosecution has been abun- 
dantly satisfying, and he has never thought the 'Case' 
worth sending to a Jury. British Juries, also, in another 
sort, never thought the Defence worth asking for ; gave the 
verdict the Judge-Prosecutor demanded instantly, waived 
decision. All that I have said of British Mendacity, spirit 
in making the war, etc. etc. ; I am likewise perfectly certain 
of. And though most Britons make it their glory at pres- 
ent, to charge iniquity on the German and sanctify them- 
selves, there is a minority who think our own sin the more 
profitable enquiry. 

As for that possible just basis for Britain's action, in- 
stinctive, not intelligent, I meant many things by this ; far 
more than I can think, much less speak. Net sum of virtue 
in a nation certainly is a thing which no mortal can tell; 
and, if the triumph of the German were not, on the whole 
for good, Britain could, conceivably, have been therefore 
drawn into opposition : Such a problem as that is entirely 
beyond human ken; and, were the answer affirmative, it 
would not one jot lessen the guilt of the wrongfulness in 
the opposition made. Neither do we know at all what the 



EEAL CAUSES 297 

purposes of Eternal Providence are : and you cannot plead 
Innocent! because your iniquities fulfilled tliem. In the 
first weeks of the war, before I had begun writing this, I 
wrote in a private letter, 'yet one has the feeling that there 
is that in the British Genius which surpasses the German.' 
Now in saying this, I know that that very Democracy matter 
was uppermost in my mind at the moment. I meant that I 
thought the Best of the British could rule in a wider, juster 
spirit. But I do not know that the facts justify such a 
thought ; and, if true^ I am afraid it is only, as it was with 
the passing Romans, when abroad, and over a different 
race. Moreover, I am bound to add, that the more I medi- 
tate the whole, the more fatefully evil does Britain's action 
show itself to me. Whether there is that in her could ever 
effect her redemption is a Dubiety indeed : on some things 
one should not utter one's full thought. 

The entire rightfulness of Germany's conduct is not a 
thing that one has ever dreamt of asserting. The Germans, 
I should think, know themselves to be fallible mortals j and 
I, as a Briton of another quality than those whose soul's 
workings have wrought this war, naturally prefer to leave 
it to the German writer to speak of his nation 's sins, short- 
comings and perversions. I do not know the interior mys- 
teries of German statesmanship, etc. ; am not competent to 
speak of that. Much less are Asquith & Co. competent; 
who have never tried to know the truth of Germany past 
or present, but persisted in exposed misconception, and 
built in vicious fancy. In many and many a point, I know 
neither what the truth was, nor what spirit was at work ; 
nor, in present time and circumstance, were it often possible 
to know. The British have their lying prophets by the 
thousand, who have professed to declare all that, and, in 
fact, declared quite another thing. Their word is not worth 
a rush. Even where one is certain of the presence of great 



298 EEAL CAUSES 

nobleness, there is always the question of its sufficiency for 
the task before it; and, in Nations, the further supreme 
Dubiety of the amount of it, the degree in which it has the 
mastery of the baser, the whole in discipline. 

There is one sort of Dubiety, in this regard, which ought 
not to be in us : That which is due to Vertigo produced by 
the sounding of Ram's Horns. I do not know that there is 
any man wholly devoid of tendency to be so affected, the 
stablest have freely confessed it. There is always 'some- 
thing magical about it ; as if Pan, or some god, were in it, 
and one's Jericho is the apter to fall.' Jericho, I believe, 
was honestly got by that method; its inhabitants struck 
with dread by the choral song of a People united in the 
name of Jehovah. Hence the magic influence. But it is 
a sorry thing if the unholy apery of his shake us at all. 
It is by much the more common, and there are many an- 
cient fables upon it. Perie-zadeh had to wear cotton wool 
to escape the fate of her brothers; a wholesome practice. 
Truly there should be no difficulty in distinguishing an 
Unanimous Babel from such a Choral Song ; yet it is strange 
what an influence it has on those who live in the midst of 
it. A sort of recurring misgiving, as if the Babel must be 
right; the smallest straw which seems to confirm it, pro- 
ducing doubts, and scarcely all the overwhelming facts 
per contra able to afford support against temptation to go 
with the stream. It is so with too many; yet surely the 
effect, if any effect were right, ought to be directly the 
reverse; the Babel's assurance, as a thing normally against 
the truth, strengthen ours. In the present case, I have not 
known one person accordant with the stream, whose accor- 
dance therewith was not to me visibly the result of evil 
affinity, would not have been a foregone conclusion. 

Certainties and Dubieties ! I have Certainty of the guilt 



EEAL CAUSES 299 

of those whose guilt is open and self-evident, whose soul's 
mendacity is palpable. Eound the path of Man through 
this world Dubieties forever hover : He is still encompassed 
with Time, rests not yet in the stillness of Eternity. 



CHAPTER VII 

ISSUES 



VII 

ISSUES 

The Issues of the War and The Things at Issue in it must 
needs all be results of the Real Causes, and as boundless, 
unfathomable. Our part but to continue consideration of 
a few elements, to hold by what we know, look at some of 
the forces at work, and reflect a little how it may be if the 
Event falls this way, and if it falls that. Briefly too ; for, 
where there is an If of this description, it is better to wait 
the decision. So far as possible, however, we shall stick by 
things in which there is no if. 

Of course the grand immediate Issue is, Who is going to 
win ? The British profess to have no doubt, nor do I think 
they really have ^ any worth speaking of, that the Numbers, 
vast resources of that Combination, they are so proud to be 
a member of, must win. They are truly thankful that their 
Cause has been painted presentably righteous by Asquith, 
Grey & Co : but their trust is in the Magnitude of the Com- 
bination they so glory to belong to. It is for the present 
happy Issue of their Subtle Entente, grown Alliance, when 
the already Begotten, not of the Lord, had to be acknowl- 
edged, to save the charge of whoredom, imperatively needed 
to be christened a Messiah, — that they chiefly bless them- 
selves. The more observant had for sometime, marked 
the condition of the Entente, but Asquith, Grey & Co. took 
God to witness they had never come near her, and the Doc- 

*At the time I wrote. I think considerable doubt is spreading 
among them now. — Note of July, 1915. 

803 



304 ISSUES 

tors gave their evidence it was merely tympanitic, these 
growing armaments and naval demonstrations just bluff; 
which, in view of the known prevalence of wind and blue 
vapour, artistically arranged, in some quarters, might have 
seemed possible, had not too many other medical symptoms 
combined to give assurance there would be a Birth. Then, 
when the Birth came, what a gratulation for Immaculate 
Conception by Politicians bred in mendacity, and song not 
of Angels, nor promising Peace or Good-will upon earth! 
And how the British do glory in the Triple Whale-Cub of 
their boiling ! Every motor-car you meet upon their roads 
has the various flags fluttering madly on its snout. It is 
the universal Coat of Arms to-day in Britain ; — the Union 
Jack with vertical and horizontal Tricolour on either side, 
Japs and minors interwoven in the richer designs. They 
paint it on their dinner services, blazon it on their coaches, 
jugs and dishes, perhaps their very chamber pots. Wher- 
ever you go it meets you ; one church ^ near where I live is 
hung with all the flags, decorated for the Harvest Festival 
of Blood, the German execrated from the pulpit and Holy 
War proclaimed with all the zeal of Turk. Each farmer 
and his labourers wears a medallion pinned on his coat- 
lappet, usually with the motto, 'United We Stand' round 
the top. Without the Slav and Celtic props, where were 
we? God could hardly help us lonesome; that mightier 
German devil would prong us out of our island. But, with 
the Nescient and Atheistic to help us, we will call loudly 
on His name, can dispense with his aid, and hurl the 
Lucent Believer down. Could British fathers, mothers, 
but realise a little what it is that they glory in, are teaching 
their children to worship, they might strike a bar sinister 
through all that blazonry, tear the medallions from off their 

* Church of Thaxted, in Essex. Visited about the time of Harvest 
Festival, 1914. 



ISSUES 305 

breasts and weep that these sjrmbolised had ever found 
place in their hearts 

The British may be correct in their assumption that the 
Combination will win ; their talk of Britain winning is too 
fulsome. But I can tell them it was never other, and can 
never be other then Woe to those who put their trust in 
numbers, vast resources, win by these. Yea, even where 
these are their own, tenfold more so when the far larger 
proportion is foreign aid. Britain won her supremacy, as 
every other has, against odds, and without aiming at su- 
premacy. A great Empire can often last long by numbers, 
etc. : yet from the day it wins by these, has come to put its 
faith in these, it is sinking, nor can all the millions, and 
the whole earth for resource save it. No ' two-power stand- 
ard' was ever dreamt of in the days when Britain won her 
dominion of the seas; she shattered great fleets with few 
ships and small. To-day she can only besiege the German 
with half the world at her back, pen him by huge prepon- 
derance of fleet. No chanticleer crows louder than the 
Britain of to-day over Germany; and it is only by swamp 
of numbers, advantage of circumstance, that she and her 
Allies have been able to — keep Germany penned and snatch 
unprotected colonies. Little of decisive may yet have been 
tried at sea, but what little has been tried goes rather to 
show that with equality of ship and gun the German is a 
match for the Briton; — which could never be said of any 
before. Whilst on land — Is there any doubt where the 
German would by now have been had he only had France 
and Britain to contend with west, no Kussia hanging on 
him east? Hapless Belgium too was a priceless Buffer to 
stuff in the gap ; kept in good fit and suitable humour for 
that object. How the Briton weeps to see her after! He 
can do it better than the crocodile, for his tears are warm 



306 ISSUES 

as well as wet. Besides, he would so fain restore her, lest 
wanted for the same again. 

Undoubtedly the Combination may win, what you call 
winning, so far as we can tell. But, if so, how will it have 
won? By subtlety, by foul conspiracy, under name of 
blessed Entente, meaning ill to no creature, a true Soapy 
Sam, in whose mouth butter would scarce melt. (My wife 
often twits me with bearing such an exterior and deceiving 
simple persons who little know.) By weight of number and 
size of purse. (0 my friends, I hope Redemption still is in 
store for some of us. It is much needed.) The Euro- 
pean Nations have proclaimed the superiority of Germany 
in the completest way they could. No two able to confront 
her ; their one hope that she may not prove too strong for 
them all. This is not, one would think, a consummation 
such as Messrs. Asquith & Co. would have devoutly prayed 
for, however zealously they wrought for it. And as for 
that Confidence in Numbers, what are we to make of it, 
when we reflect on many a Bannockburn, Leuthen, and 
Marathon, a Seven Years' War and its fiLnal result? 

Such Confidence does commonly augur the defeat of those 
who go out to battle in it, and is normally found in those 
opposed to heroic few. But we cannot from the presence 
of it in the one party, conclude the presence of heroic 
spirit in the other, nor that able captaincy so vitally neces- 
sary. Very early in the war, when the newspapers were 
all clamouring of German arrogance, imagination of flam- 
ing conquests etc., etc. : I noticed report of an accidental 
conversation with a quite private and civilian German. 
The imagination of flaming conquests! Who doubts there 
was plenty of it in the heads of Editors, and Populace of 
all ranks? It is always to be found there in such circum- 
stances. And great hopes, as well as anxieties in other 
heads, which never made war for conquest. The private 



ISSUES 307 

German's reply to his interrogator was given as: They (the 
Allies) may reduce us to a condition of stalemate; but they 
will never subject us. Or, if so, there will be none of us 
remaining here (i.e. not fighting). That is the temper to 
build hope on, if hope be needed. The temper which can 
scorn hope, or do better than scorn it, be above the need 
of it and resolute to die first, at least to front death fight- 
ing while means of fighting are left. What spirit is in the 
German armies and their leaders I have no means of know- 
ing this instant. But I do know and again assert that all 
heroism of which man is capable is open to the German if 
he can rise to it; whilst the utmost that is possible in the 
Allies is limited. The German is fighting for his country's 
existence as a nation, and for more than we can reckon ; to 
him the fullest resolution is possible, if he can but con- 
stantly rise to it, one in a thousand to leaven the whole ; to 
the highest of all spirits there is no bar for him. The 
Allies are fighting against One whom they have, for their 
purposes, labelled a Common Enemy, done all they could to 
make out deserving of destruction, for divers reasons of 
State and Humanity's Progress; to them is possible mess- 
room honour, exploit, hardihood, with the vindictive and 
the lying zeals ; virtues of the soldier by trade, who had to 
fight irrespective of cause, and those of honest ignorance. 
Limited and illimitable, finite and infinite; spontaneous 
convictions, which need no proof, and inculcated accepted of 
hearsay; veracious intelligence and mendacious persua- 
sions ; the Volition of man, which is immortal, and the self 
wills which are, in a double sense, mortal : If there be any 
such contrast as that, what are aU human calculations? 

When we turn to Confidences, if you still call them Con- 
fidences, which are not based on number and are in nothing 
quasi, my own deepest are, confessedly, centred here in 
that clear sight and knowledge of true German character 



308 ISSUES 

and history which Carlyle eminently laid open for us. This 
is not faith in another's Report, though in such case, that 
also we may rightly have ; it is what I have just called it, 
clear sight of the facts. For, to whoso has ear to hear, and 
eye to see, there is no possible doubt about them. These 
things certainly were so ; and the Report bears its own evi- 
dence of its truth in its own substance ; we are there asked 
to believe no fable or miraculous occurrence, to put our 
faith in anjrthing we cannot ourselves find true : there are 
some men who cannot lie, and there are some things which 
cannot be imagined. One knows very well that the Present 
is not the same as the Past, but one also knows very well 
that it is the child of the Past. The British, French, Rus- 
sian and Austrian actions, present existences, are all visibly 
of known parentage ; and so are the German. The contrast 
between the German and those others was very great before, 
nor do I believe it to be less to-day. It is only those who 
have gained a little insight into the perennial in man, into 
the eternal laws of his being, become able to distinguish all 
forms of the genuine from all forms of the spurious, who 
can see this and know this, but they do both see it and 
know it. The present generations are not the same, but 
they are spherical descendents ; and who denies the Father- 
hood knows nought of the Sonship. That virtue of the 
German, Carlyle revealed to us, was of the vital, growing 
sort, not of the decadent, of the prime or past prime ; and 
no question it has continued to grow, has new perils to 
overcome within and without. All turns on its power to 
cope with these ; of its existence there is no doubt. When 
I reflect, as I constantly do, on that veracity of character, 
fidelity of soul, veridical piety; that indomitable valour, 
indefatigable energy, with placidity and profoundest con- 
templation, solidity of the earth and aerial lightness of the 
realms of faery ; that wide openness of intellect, and vigor- 



ISSUES 309 

ous forward march in all provinces of true human endea- 
vour, rootedness with boundless expansibility ; that free vi- 
tality resolute to live in the Whole, the Good, the True, 
instead of the Reputable, Plausible, Half;— Britain! 
Briton ! Why could you not shake hands with this, instead 
of bosoming with Bears and Light Wenches? When I re- 
flect on these things, I say, there is in the background of 
my mind, always an Incredibility that Germany's day is 
over ; that she will not in one way or another come through, 
and still have a great Future before her. For one sees in 
her that which, and which alone, is the enduring strength 
of a nation. A desirable Kultur indeed, very different 
from faith in Bedlam's Axiom and the Zeals of Mendacity ! 
— And owns the inmost feeling that if she is true to herself 
she must survive to brighter destinies than this stern pres- 
ent. This Confidence does not imply confidence in her 
proving palpable victor: it is enough if she can withstand 
the shock of the onslaught made upon her. And, in spite 
of all anxieties, in spite of all desolations and horrors, I 
have a sort of Restfulness that this Issue has been put to 
the sword; a certain inward peace and thankfulness that 
here is no tongue-fence, but a more determining. There 
may be much crowing after too ; yet the dust-clouds will fly 
off in the wind, the facts remain. At the worst, let her die 
fighting, and she will have done worthily. Profitable vic- 
tory is not possible to such a Combination. 

Nevertheless, there can be no just 'Confidence' which 
does not submit itself wholly to the will of heaven. To do 
our utmost in that submission, yet never make it an excuse 
for shirk or cowardly relinquishment. And I am bound to 
acknowledge a great counter impression, or one which may 
at first seem counter. Namely, that the Law of Providence 
is that, at present, the Better shall be everywhere defeated, 
what you caU defeated; so far as possible, frustrated, and 



310 ISSUES 

reduced to a minimum of effectuality in Society. On the 
small scale, in the private instances, this is pretty well 
universally the rule. In Britain, it is, practically, com- 
pletely so; there that godless leaven of mendacity, and 
serene assurance of validity in faith which are baseless and 
sordid, has so infected the whole mass, reached such a 
height of assurance, that none, who is not an Equivocator, 
and has not accepted those nonsensical doctrines as a gos- 
pel, is admitted into any species of communion, from 
Church and Senate to Trades Union and Social Circle. 
The British may rage in fear at aught of the god-like threat- 
ening to grow to power abroad, but at home they have no 
wrath toward this; secure in a composed Exclusion, and 
satisfied that nothing of that nature could ever come to 
majority among them. Mammon is their one solid god, and 
aU theme beyond must go with one or other of the popu- 
larities. They have the greatest shamelessness and freedom 
even from misgiving that I have ever witnessed, in simul- 
taneously acknowledging that wisdom is wisdom and pass- 
ing over it as a thing of no account. You would say that 
their soul's conviction is: God certainly is God, and we 
know better. Or, if not better, which, to be just to them, 
they would usually scruple to say, yet well enough for this 
world, where it is our law and not His that prevails. Quite 
softly, as a rule, and even with a tone of regret that such 
is the necessity of things ; but with what a venom of Shall 
Prevail! if the prevalence seem to be imperilled, all men 
may know this hour. Now, though it may never have been 
seen before, I have all along admitted that it is possible for 
the World to do with One Nation, precisely as a Nation can 
with an Individual. Germany once satisfactorily burnt at 
the stake, the composed Exclusion is to follow, and no 
wrath to come : That is the Blest Land of Promise we are 
told to reckon no cost too great to reach. Personally, I do 



ISSUES 311 

not rejoice in the prospect, nor much believe in the attain- 
ment. But the truth is that, where the world is sufficiently 
evil, the like of this can be done, in modified form; is, in 
fact, bound to be done, if the evil be sufficiently intense 
and widespread. Because no man prospers or fails socially 
by his own merit or demerit alone, but by that of the whole 
Society he is a member of; and the same is becoming 
increasingly true of nations, as they come to live and 
move in one sphere, inhabit a known globe with interests 
and activities everywhere interwoven, instead of being sepa- 
rate centres, little communicating. That, I repeat again 
and again, is Justice for Society ; that the Good shall only 
prosper socially as the Whole deserves that it should. Where 
the vital force is, and can continue to maintain itself, there 
is no doubt of its ultimate victory, for all the powers of 
Increase are with it; but its immediate conquest or defeat, 
the degree of either, is always determined by more than 
its own powers. Ill-doers, still equipt with a great inherited 
possession remain very strong for a season: Enmity and 
Fanatical Superstition can unite and inspire their Legions, 
Whilst, in Beginnings, the true who have faith are few in 
number; neither without faith can there be any Host of 
the Just. I have deliberately written : Our hope is not in 
Reformation, but in Regeneration beyond death. It is in 
Germany alone that I still see possibility of a victorious 
solution, without discontinuity ; and present world 's anath- 
ema of her due to a determination to extinguish that 
possibility: Sometimes it seems too much to hope, that so 
complete a consensus will be unable to bear down all oppo- 
sites for a time. I can assure Germany of one thing : That 
it is only by the amount of following that Consensus may 
have within herself, that the possibility can go out in her. 
This is no Doctrine of Despair. It is the admittance of a 
spirit without Hope, as without Fear, resolved to persist, 



312 ISSUES 

to endure to the end, and leave the Issue to Him in whose 
hands it alone can be. 

Of territorial changes, it were mere foolishness to fore- 
cast. The British, in their impious way, still continue to 
talk of the 'recovery' by France, or the 'restoration' to 
France, of Alsace-Lorraine, perfectly well knowing that, 
if this be achieved, they will have assisted to 'restore' re- 
covered stolen goods to the one time thief of them. They 
know this quite well, but you need not speak to them about 
it. Truth and fact may be as they may; it is their law 
shall prevail. Conformable Russia gives promise of Auton- 
omy to Poland ; ready enough, if she can keep and get the 
substance, to hang out what picture will please. Utter 
collapse, disintegration. Partition by the Fates, and as 
merited an erasure from national existence as ever was. — 
You need not speak of it to the British. That has already 
been done ; we see with what effect. They have ceased 
endeavour to deny it : Let it stand : doubtless that fact was 
so, but it is not accordant with our law, and we prefer to 
continue by our lying fancies; it was only after consider- 
able thought, that we brought ourselves to realise the wick- 
edness, and it is not now our pleasure to believe anything 
else! This of 'after considerable thought,' by the by, is 
like that other well-known formula, ' after very careful con- 
sideration ' : Since this should have been given, it of course 
was ; let the verdict and the promptitude of it give the lie 
as they may. The British never gave any more thought to 
the Polish question than to the Silesian or the present Ger- 
man; their verdicts 'came in like the Atlantic Tide unan- 
imous, under the influence of the Moon itself. ' And if now 
some new godless mockery can be set up, no matter what a 
mockery, what a palpable, and mischief -working farce, how 
hideously hollow as ever, they wiU sing its praises ; will flat- 



ISSUES 313 

ter themselves they have restored the irrestorable, be thank- 
ful that at least the Image of their godhead has been once 
more erected, Invisible Deity 's worship driven back a little, 
and the reign of Old Night extended. It will rejoice their 
hearts to think of countries, once full of Teutonic life, 
flourishing in the sunlight, or which might have come to 
this, being swallowed up, or retained, in the belly of Rus- 
sian Darkness. I observe they do not sit quite still under 
these remarks. A certain shuffle, wriggle, and uneasiness 
noticeable. They would protest if they knew how ; and the 
chief object of the promise of Autonomy is to assuage this 
uneasiness, give the ill deed as much Presentability as pos- 
sible under the circumstances. It was the exigencies of 
their position which forced them to this. They could not 
save their own skins, wreak the vengeance of jealousy, 
which, of course, is, for them, only another way of saying 
serve God, without making compact with the devil. And 
better it were half the world were desolated than he should 
prosper, — meaning another and confounding the two, as 
their wont is. 

What a suggestion, that Belgium should become part of 
the German Empire ! It were the fairest fate now open to 
her. The sole thing which could raise a doubt in me of the 
beneficence of this fate for Belgium, is the difference of 
Race. But the great difficulties, which necessarily exist 
there, could, with a noble wisdom, be overcome entirely in 
time ; nor do I believe the German would make of Belgium 
a second Ireland. No vital nationality either has been, is, 
or is likely to be in modern Belgium. That was a made-up 
State, with supplied Kings and Constitution: Irreconcila- 
bles allowed separate existence under approved forms. 
What is great in past Belgian history belongs to the time 
when she was part of the Netherlands, and sprang from that 
part of the Race which is allied to the German. For her 



314 ISSUES 

to become an integral part of the German Empire now, 
were just simply rescue from the hapless condition of a 
Buffer State ; than which there are few fates more haplesa. 
The doctrine and practice of maintaining small States as 
Buffers between mighty is completely damned ; a thing the 
soul of every just man abhors. Reinstate Belgium in a 
nominal independence, and she will be still more a mere 
Buffer than she was before. Not love for Belgium would 
ever counsel this, — and it never was love for Belgium that 
inspired British condonments, reluctant Congo protests, 
and cocker to stand firm in the gap. As Grey so candidly 
expressed it : Had you been as far off as Servia, you should 
have been pounded in a mortar, and the walls of a jakes 
striped with the pottage before we would have stirred a 
finger. Now all the world sees you are pounded in a mortar. 
Your fate afflicts us, honestly, since it was for us alone you 
suffered; and, our resolution remaining constant that the 
German shall not have that bit of ground, we are doubly 
determined to restore you. Then, in gratitude for all the 
good done, you will fill the gap again, as well or better next 
time ; for the pounding and the restoration taken together 
will have so made you our debtor, that you won't have much 
will of your own left in the matter. The German offer here 
was. Let live, on conditions which were reasonable in the 
circumstances. But the British promptly interfered, say- 
ing : We won 't believe you. For form 's sake, we offer you 
conditions which you would be some stranger animal than a 
Goose to accept ; but our spleens would forgive us never if 
we let slip such an opportunity of striking at your hated 
power. To Belgium they said : Die you for us, as your duty 
is, and we'll resurrect you to our mind after. Stript of 
Mendacity's colourings, such are the facts. Nervous Brit- 
ish Politicians argued. If Belgium become German, now or 
hereafter that country would be too formidable. To whom 



ISSUES 3ilS 

one answers only here, If she do, never will there have been 
a clearer ease of those who dreaded a thing, bringing that 
thing upon them. 

German Aggression! War for Conquest! Militarism! 
These were the cries which Britain raised, to the drowning 
of aU voice of Reason, when she voluntarily went into this, 
for her quite extraneous war. And ever since she has been 
egging on other states, Italy, Greece, etc., to join in for the 
sake of conquest. Now's your chance to snatch what you 
have a mind to. You'll never have such another oppor- 
tunity. For God 's sake, make the most of it, while time is. 
Aggression ! War for Conquest ! Militarism ! it would ap- 
pear, are only 'Infamous' when unpleasing to British jeal- 
ousies and cupidities, 'Holy' when pleasing to these. Not 
that I suppose their Government addresses others, when 
egging them on to such enterprises. Do thus and thus for 
the love of God. No, it is only when explaining the matter 
to their own People that they say, you see how it was all 
done for the love of God. Don't we just! reply they; 
thank God and you for so safe-guarding our interests, and 
making paths to our will. You know both our real desires 
and our susceptibilities of conscience as no other has ever 
done ; find ways for satisfying the first with a skill beyond 
praise, whilst you calm the fears of the second, nay, con- 
vert these into sacred assurances, with an art which is 
matchless. You are clearly the true gifted of heaven, for it 
is evident to us when, how, why, and where you lie; that 
your own souls believe what you preach even as ours do 
now. — My friends, I know that this egging on of outside 
parties, this fomenting of discords which may prove trou- 
blesome to a foe, is always done ; that the right and wrong 
of it is a bottomless sort of question ; neither, however much 
I detest much in it, am I superstitious on the subject. It 
is the face put on it that I cannot away with ; this sancti- 



316 ISSUES 

monious pretence of all-righteousness, with such actualities 
glaring through the Transparencies, is the thing one utterly 
revolts from, abhors as more damned than the foulest lust 
which goes openly to work, Cromwell fomented discord, so 
did Friedrich, so does Kaiser Wilhelm, so probably, at one 
time or another, did every Just Statesman in his day. You 
may wish they had not, if you think yourself holy enough. 
The thing to observe is, that the Cromwell remained Crom- 
well, Friedrich Friedrich, and Belleisle Belleisle, Asquith 
& Co. Asquith & Co. — ; neither is there any bridging of the 
gulf between. 

One of the mournfulest things is the way in which other 
nations copy this British Mendacity. There is the way to 
glory, think they nearly all, and emulously follow suit. 
Entente is becoming the regular name for nations which 
would subtly reach their private ends, with the blessing of 
humanity on their disinterested loving kindness for each 
other, and dove-like intentions to third parties, to work 
under. Quite a beatific vision to them of the proper way 
of going about it. To some of us, the outcome has given 
such a surfeit of the name as we shall not soon recover 
from, but then we abominated the thing from the day of its 
generation; whilst to them it is the prosperous outcome 
which almost excels belief, redoubles zeal to appropriate the 
British Evangel. When will the spell of that be broken; 
whither it verily leads seen, and nations, horror-struck, 
recoil; some Veracious Examplar be in first rank, lesser 
Peoples take after it? 

Carlyle asked, of the Austrian Succession War, Who was 
to blame for it? And answered France: 'That is the 
* notable point in regard to this War : That France is to be 
'called the author of it, who, alone of all the parties, had 
'no business there whatever. . . . We have often said, the 
'Spanish-English War was itself likely to have kindled 



ISSUES 317 

'Europe; and again Friedrich's Silesian War was itself 
* likely, — France being nearly sure to interfere. But if 
'both these Wars were necessary ones, and if France inter- 
'fered in either of them on the wrong side, the blame wiU 
'be to France, not to the necessary Wars. France could 
'in no way have interfered in a more barefacedly unjust 
'and gratuitous manner than she did; nor, on any terms, 
'have so palpably made herself the author of the conflagra- 
'tion of deliriums that ensued for above Twenty years 
'henceforth, {Friedrich. Bk.: 12. Chap.: 11). Now, with the 
exception that you have to couple Britain with France (and 
she the worse of the pair) this is as true of to-day's War. 
It may well be that Balkan affairs, Austro-Russian, Russo- 
German, disagreements were ground for wars; but France 
had absolutely no sort of call to interfere, and certainly 
did not interfere on the right side, or with any care at all 
of the Justice of the dispute. Whilst Britain founded her 
pretended right to interfere on the preconcluded assump- 
tion that France had the right to interfere. It is amaz- 
ing how these pleas could pass, with outsiders, at 
least, such as America. Soul-blinding Superstition is the 
only explanation. France again and again proclaimed that 
she would not remain Neutral in a quarrel which was no 
concern of hers ; yet the world has answered, Then damned 
is Germany, since she would not hold her hand in face of 
such a threat ; instead of the clear truth. Then damned are 
you, France, for not remaining neutral. And doubly 
damned are you, Britain, for giving France cover whilst she 
made her threats, then joining in, in pretence of justice, 
because your united threats proved unavailing. Wars are 
very apt to kindle other wars ; but, if they do, the blame of 
the spread lies on those who caused the spread, not upon 
those who made the necessary wars. And, in this present 
instance, the blame of all the war in the West of Europe 



318 ISSUES 

lies wholly upon France and Britain; neither of which 
nations had any title whatever to interfere in the Eastern, 
which were unavoidable. Their own ambitions, vanities, 
cupidities, jealousies and enmities, and nothing else, led 
France and Britain in, caused them to assure the Russ 
beforehand he should have their support: By that assur- 
ance, they are largely, perhaps mainly, guilty of the war in 
the East too ; just as Britain, by her secret cover of France, 
is as much or more guilty of the war West as France her- 
self. Britain's jealous dread of Germany was the Mother 
in whose warmth the whole accursed policy was hatched, 
even as it is her might which lends strength and sinew to the 
outrage. No nation ought to withhold its hand from a 
necessary war because others are too malicious or inflam- 
mable to keep out. If they join in, it is their vice which 
made them do so, and the sin is on their own heads. Grey's 
Concert pleadings are an unspeakable morass. But of aU 
this I have written enough. 

When the French ate their Covenant to support Prag- 
matic Sanction, they put forth the excuse, Salvo jure tertvi, 
Saving the rights of Third Parties. The manner of the 
thing is a little different to-day. Experience teaches : and 
Subtlety will do a deeper stroke. That of bringing out 
Covenants at the proper moment, and swearing that you 
are, in your soul and conscience, bound to keep them in 
the teeth of heaven. But the substance is much the same. 
It is for the Rights of Third Parties that each of the Allies 
professes to be fighting : they are all too godly to fight for 
their own. Greece must lick her old wounds, be careful of 
her health, — and fulfil her treaty obligations. What are 
they? Whisht! The time's not ripe to tell. Perchance, 
she scarce knows herself till it be. Give France her due, she 
made no secret of those she had made; and, of course, it 
was a plain point of honour and modesty to breathe no 



ISSUES 319 

whisper of those granted to her. 'Tis an excellent device, 
that of the Rights of Third Parties. By means of it you 
can open a gate anywhere and anywhen you have a mind ; 
through which the biggest teams on the highway (whole 
British Empire) can drive freely, and the paltriest cadger's 
ass (Jap, Portugal) can step in for a bellyful? Greece has 
not risen at the bait of Smyrna, but it is hoped she yet will 
rise to that, on some daintier. No cadger's ass need lack 
a bellyful, while the Master drives such a team and pockets 
Colonies galore. 

These are the sort of things which Britain cherishes to- 
day, some of the Issues she hopes for. 'Restoration' to the 
thief of goods he had to yield back to the true owner. Re- 
establishment (in name) of nations which Providence sup- 
pressed as totally unworthy. Wider realm to Barbaric 
Nescience, narrower to Veracious Manhood. Maintenance 
of Buffer States, to keep whom she dreads at the greater 
distance from her shores. And every that has a team to 
drive to take what he can get, each cadger's ass in for a 
bellyful. Things all hideous in themselves, and rendered a 
hundred times the more so by the horrible Mendacity in 
which they are gone about by Britain. Moreover, the most 
hopeless fact for Britain is, that it is the Better Intellects in 
her which have led her into this war, now lead her in it. 
Had it been the Effete, one would have thought much less 
of it; neither would they have expended all energies to 
win. That it should be these Lloyd Georges, Churchills, 
Asquiths, there is the greatest sin and misery. This is not 
what Carlyle spoke of as probable; till quite recently, no 
man could have prophesied it, though it is easy now to see 
it perfectly accordant, a clear sequel. That, instead of 
Impotence and Moulder, continued slow Rot, and Clash of 
Factions, we should see the Potent, Energetic, the brilliant 
in Gift and Faculty, who had in so much seized the Gospel 



320 ISSUES 

of the New, plunge our nation into Crime, and consummate 
in a few years iniquities we expected would maunder on 
noteless an indefinite time. If they rejected the Deeper, 
the Eternal, persisted in the Bedlam Faiths and so com- 
pounded with Mendacity that their own souls became as 
completely mendacious, it was inevitable. The bitterest of 
the Effete could not then have half their enmity toward 
the Living True ; and, in them, the activity, will and daring 
to do as their soul's perversion prompted. The Event ever 
comes upon us with something of surprise, and the most 
watchful have to reproach themselves. Why were we not 
more awake ! 

It is upon such few of the innumerable Things at Issue 
as it behooves me to speak of, that the preceding chapter is 
written. I hope no reader is so foolish as to imagine that, 
because a thing is at issue in this war, therefore, it is going 
to be finally decided by the war's result. Some will be, 
some will not, hardly any that we have seen looking at to- 
gether are likely to be so at all ; and how far a decision will 
be advanced toward or receded from, in regard to any of 
these latter, there is yet no know. 

Britain or Germany? is one of the things you can with 
greatest certainty know to have been put to trial; be it in 
preliminary skirmish or now mortal — I can't say duel. 
That lawsuit has been openly commenced : How long it will 
last before the final verdict is arrived at, God only knows. 
Britain gratuitously entered into this Arbitrament ; and in 
the manner in which she has done so the finger of Fate 
writes visibly. A great and long fully established nation, 
secure in immense possession, a mighty Empire of inex- 
haustible resource, which if true to itself, veracious, pious, 
working well to-day for worthy things, could, most com- 
posedly have said. Come on then, to All and Sundry who 
wished to try its strength, observes another kindred nation 



ISSUES 321 

growing wholesomely, in the evident blessing of heaven, a 
light centre daily conquering somewhat from the powers of 
darkness and spreading the realm of intelligence; refuses 
that nation all welcome, flouts its offers, eyes its increase 
with jealous fear; truckles for favour with that nation's 
foes, smiles sweetly on whom it hopes but half its friends ; 
shows those they need not fear, whispers turncoats need 
only name their fee ; makes compact secretly with these, to 
protect itself, lends cover to their mischief- working wills; 
and, when those wills have brought the Opportunity it 
wrought for, yet swears it never wanted, leaps, cat o 'moun- 
tainwise, upon that nation's throat. Its Ministers pro- 
claiming too. It was all for the love of God that we had to 
do thus to save your skins. One last time I call your atten- 
tion to this. Look at the Fact, and not at the colours put on 
it, — though, in truth, those colours are part of the fact, 
reveal it in a way they were never meant to ; they are very 
well worth your study so. Is it not fateful, more ominous 
than anything in War itself can be ? Does it not give a pre- 
conclusion which almost renders insignificant any conclu- 
sion reached in the war ? So far as Britain is concerned, it 
undoubtedly does. What a hollo wness is there exposed! 
what an evilness of spirit! As if the British had become 
conscious of their state, of their departure from integrity 
and sequent need to prop themselves by every means attain- 
able. As if they could no longer hope to disguise from 
themselves or the world their weakness or their dread. 
Those ministers shouted from the housetops; without the 
aid of others, Britain dare not hope to live : All differences 
must be sunk to damn the German. And have proved that 
this was verily their faith by their deeds. Then such a 
seeking, such an acquiring of aid, and such a process of be- 
damning. It is the thousand times repeated story : By the 
cunning of our will and the strength of our hands, we will 



ISSUES 

defeat the Lord. Put aside the rest, look directly at this 
Brito-German Arbitrament, and, if you cannot see, in Brit- 
ain 's entry into it all the elements which have ever been in 
Old Iniquity seeking to suppress New Power, you have not 
much vision, much understanding of the Heart of Man or of 
his History on this Planet. 

What can the Issue of this be for Britain ? If her Pack 
win, what manner of further Lease of Power, of continued 
existence as a Nation of Men, is she going to gain so f There 
may be many other elements in Britain ; but, unless Britons 
of another quality can effectively say and prove by their 
very counter deeds that their nation has been most foully 
belied by those who have wrought and conducted this war, 
there is no more doubt of the Issue for Britain, whichever 
way the immediate victory go, than of the fall of a stone. 
Asquith & Co. have not the slightest understanding of such 
things ; Churchill 's trepidations are the nearest approach to 
an inkling of them I have met with there. In him, one could 
almost believe the existence of an actual, veridical, inward 
impression that, if, with all the weight of armament and 
Combination — not to speak of blackballing — ^he, with others, 
has been zealous to prepare, Britain cannot overwhelm Ger- 
many, then she really will have been fighting against the 
Lord all along in the endeavour to. Let us be thankful for 
small mercies; you will not be able to find (or imagine) 
even this much in any of the others ; and for my part, I dare 
not say our nation has been belied by them. Neither do I 
know, in the least, what the strength of the minority, which 
abhors this war, and all that brought it, may be. For Ger- 
many, one cannot tell what the Issue will be. The most just 
on earth may be destroyed on earth. And, if not, for all 
his further course, it depends on what strength and wisdom 
really is in him : Never well knowable till proven. 

It is strange that the world is more confident that the 



ISSUES 323 

further triumph of Democracy (with Russia to help it tri- 
umph) or its imperilment, is a thing At-Issue than that al- 
most anything else is, whilst I am most doubtful of that, in 
a way, and in a way not doubtful either. We mean differ- 
ent things, the "World and I ; and, if the comparison afflict 
you, you can remember Tristram Shandy 's reflection on the 
matter. At least the world fancies it means a different 
thing ; but, of course, that is a delusion on its part, and yet 
again it is not. The World means that it believes Democ- 
racy to be in danger of being over-ridden by what it calls 
'Militarism'; whilst I only hope that it may be in the way 
of getting honourably wedded to what can husband its 
priceless virtues and control its whims a little. The World 
shrieks at such a notion, prefers Union Libre in all things. 
And thus you may see how it does and does not mean the 
same thing. The courtship is like to be long, and rough at 
the commencement ; one is only too thankful to see it begun, 
if begun it in verity be. No hardy Militant Wooer will 
lightly take a negative ; but will himself grow in grace ; and 
that wedding be accomplished in the time appointed. 

My own hope that such a thing is At Issue grows more 
and more toward assurance that it is ; that this unexampled 
animosity toward the One at bay, springs largely from the 
fact that it is, is a true instinct of Protagonist in the field. 
And, certainly, this World-sympathy with the Allies is 
almost entirely due to the real or supposed imperilment of 
Democracy. Especially is this the case with America. 
Doubtless the blood-tie between American and Briton comes 
first there, in a sense ; but this would have been quite inade- 
quate to excite such enthusiasm for that Blessed Trinity of 
an Entente as America exhibits. It is the notion that the 
Allies (Russia among them, I don't let you forget it) are 
fighting for Democratical Principles against German — ^Des- 
potism, I suppose I must write, however absurdly, that so 



324 ISSUES 

fills the American with zeal, and amazingly blinds him. 
Except for this, he would have coolly considered the matter 
first, I think, instead of blazing off into such a spontaneous 
concurrence as almost outran the Briton himself. One, set 
upon by half the world might, at the outset, I should have 
thought, have rendered America undisposed to add to his 
burden, unite in wild anathema; if she did not feel called 
upon to hasten to his aid — which I have in no wise ever said 
she ought — might have given her leisure to hear both sides 
deliberately. Democracy, my Beloved Brothers of the 
Stars and Stripes! Is not the soul of all good in that 
Equal Justice between man and man? Has this been less 
established in Germany than in America or Britain? And 
when has it ever been seen in France or Russia? If you, 
too, become the slave of Names, eyeless for Substance, bless 
all who profess like Article, and ban who can find his way 
to heaven without subscribing to it! There has long been 
a genuine, unspoken E7itente between America and Britain ; 
if a Triple were necessary, might not Germany with these, 
have made a better than the present proclaimed? And is 
that subtle and so loudly proclaimed Entente of similar 
spirit at all? Is it Equal Justice between man and man, 
nation and nation, that British jealousy, French envy and 
Russian greed is endeavouring to enforce against the Ger- 
man this instant? Bejesuited Czardom, Tricky Bureau- 
cracy, Mock King and Artists, are lovelier in your eyes than 
HohenzoUern Kaiser, worthy Peerage, and free People? 
The Names, Kaiser, Peerage, are such red rags to you, that 
you cannot look at Substance, wiU cheer on any bison herd 
which aims to tread their wearers in the mire ? If it be so, 
it is a pity that it should be. British acceptance of White 
Paper 'Case' was a foregone conclusion; but I should not 
have said that that particular damned stuff was suited to 
your digestion. It is this other thing, this soul-blinding Su- 



ISSUES 325 

perstition, which has led you to give it and so much else, 
credence. In the name of Truth and Equity, open your 
eyes and look at it, at the actual Substance of the Whole 
dispute. 

Mendacity and Veracity are At Issue in this war. And 
that is the central essence, the supremely important thing, 
whereof all else is but various manifestation. Grant the 
German guilty of everything charged against him, he would 
be a very sinful creature, such a monster as never was, — 
indeed, I believe you, such a monster as never was, except 
in dreams, — yet he still were not mendacious. He is not 
even charged with being so. However many lies may be 
triumphantly nailed on the counter against him — chiefly by 
the coiners — there is no breath of this charge. On the con- 
trary, the burden of the whole indictment sounds to some 
ears too like. Damn you, you're not. Whereas the British 
are utterly mendacious; and have infected the whole with 
that abominable leaven, which it were a divine mercy to see 
their and the world 's confidence in shaken by whomsoever. 

All human interest in this War centres in the German or 
nowhere. If it be a pitting of Mendacity against Ambi- 
tion's Lusts, then it is just an enormous Suicidal Zero. 
If a Veracious Manhood is once more in death-wrestle with 
the Devil's Legions, then, the highest interests of Man are 
again at stake. 

Concerning the effect of the War 's result upon the Things 
at Issue, but a word. 

With Germany visibly victorious, Mendacity's spell on 
the world were probably broken at once, though Mendacity 
itself a long way from extirpated ; and, similarly it would 
probably rapidly become apparent that Democracy is not 
the complete Gospel of IMan's Welfare for all time. This 
hideous mendaciousness of soul, in which the British are 



326 ISSUES 

sodden, which is the source of all their misdeed, is a curse 
utter on the world, and on themselves first and foremost. 
Can they never come out of it, then? It, one does pray, 
may be exorcised, utterly expeUed. War upon it without 
mercy wherever you meet it, in yourselves or in others, all 
ye crave of all nations. No cost is too great to gain that 
exorcism. If total defeat in this war put the British in the 
way of gaining it, then such defeat were the purest mercy 
that could be granted to them. But Democracy is not going 
to be extirpated ; Democracy need not have the smallest mis- 
giving that any 'mailed fist' can destroy her. What is 
true in Democracy, is ours once and for always, it can never 
again be lost to mankind. And, just as certainly as this is 
true, is it true that Democracy is not the Complete Gospel ; 
that those who insist she is our one salvation, subscribe to 
Article, and make a Superstition of her worship, excom- 
municating all who will not bow the knee to their Idol, are 
enemies to Human Progress. Enemies so inspired them- 
selves with a spirit allied to the Tyrant's and the Jesuit's, 
that it is little wonder they have leagued with these to damn 
whom their fanaticism names Infidel. Democracy has got 
to be subdued to the quality of her Lord, And, truly, Sirs, 
when he once verily appears, and she comes to see, instead 
of mis-see him a little, I think the courtship will go forward 
in another fashion than the stormy overtures we witness 
may seem to give promise of. 

With anything like a draw, Germany simply not de- 
feated, her future ought to be equally assured; and much 
the same effects follow later. With the Combination suc- 
cessful, to any high degree, just the further indefinite pro- 
longing of what was before the war. The life's battle of 
the noble made more difficult than ever, their victory fur- 
ther removed. Further removed; but, if they continue 
present, in a constant persistence, entirely assured. Men- 



ISSUES 327 

dacity is at all moments growing weaker, rotting away: 
Veracity stands to increase. A clear Religious Faith and 
august Manhood, a State founded on Reverence of Human 
Worth, must again evolve. In all such regards, this huge 
"War is no more than an Episode, the intrinsic importance 
of which no man can at present in the least measure. 

Finally, let us not only remember that there are innumer- 
able other Issues, besides these few we have touched upon, 
but also, confess from our hearts, that there are deeper 
Causes and higher Issues than any we can articulately 
speak of, or have even the faintest perception of. Causes 
and Issues, which, even without invalidating the truth of 
our perceptions of what we do perceive, may well so wholly 
transcend all we know as to make this of small weight in 
the determination. The true Real Causes are known to God 
alone, and the Issues are with Him alone. O troubled souls, 
who look on things, yea, live in the midst of things, whereat 
the imaginations of all mortal are apt to run wild, that 
Power which created us, endowed us with Intellect, Moral 
Emotion, is — not less endowed with these: Our tenderest 
pity, our truest love, and noblest sympathy, our Justice at 
its justest, — ^What are they to those of Him whose path is 
in the Great Deep for evermore? 

• • • 

Conclusion 

To be written, if at all, after the War is over. 



SUMMAEIES 



SUMMARIES 



PROEM 



The war is in defiance of Carlyle's teaching. Modern 
Hun ! Carlyle 's testimony to Germany. Notion of Democ- 
racy versus Autocracy, 1-4; Solidarity of Empire. 
Churchill notions. Proclamation of Magnitude, 5-8; 
Rights instinctive and intelligent. Solidarities, good and 
bad. Peace? 9-11. 

I. CONCERT OF EUROPE 

Belief in Concert as a sacred thing. Sacred Concert! 
13-15. The Kaunitz text. Conclaves of the Powerful, and 
Courts of Arbitration convened for — peace among the 
Arbiters! 15-18. Honest Conferences? Mere grandiose 
disposers. And all for Peace's sake. What answer give 
the heavens to this? 18-21. 

n, OSTENSIBLE CAUSES 

Preliminary, 25-28; Austro-Servian : Britain on, 28-31; 
ditto Germany on, 31-33; ditto Russia on (Russian inter- 
vention), 33-34; German intervention, 34-36; France, 36; 
Pleadings for peace between Austria and Russia, 36-37; 
ditto that Germany should not support Austria. Menace? 
37-42; French intervention; also, eleventh hour Treble, 

331 



332 



SUMMARIES 



42-43; Sincerity (?) of British wish war should remain in 
East, 44-45; British Intervention: Grey's offer no future 
hostility, 45-47; The ''infamous" German "Bid," 47-51; 
Figment of Free Hand, 51-53 ; Belgian Neutrality. Cham- 
pionship of, 53-55; Sum up, 55. 

m. BALANCE OF POWER 

Balance of Power as actual aim: As a Nation: Carlyle 
on, 57-63; Unjust Encroachments and Precautions 
against, Natural Growth and Jealous Forbiddal of it, In 
general, 63-67 ; In present case, 67-73. 



IV. SYSTEMS OF ALLIANCES 

1. Systems of Alliances .... 

2. Alliances as Engagements generally, etc. 

3. Distinction of Alliances and Conspiracies 

4. Alliances are by Elective Affinities, etc. 

5. Each of the Alliances in Present Case 



77-81 
81-85 
86-87 
87-91 
91-95 



V. THE COMBINATION AGAINST GERMANY 

1. Magnitude of the Combine. Overwhelming 

Odds, etc 99-103 

2. Combination's own account of itself: Its true 

character. It is directly descended from 

prior Combinations . .... 103-116 

3. What evidence does character of this Combina- 

tion afford of character of the ONE com- 
bined against? 116-117 

4. Problem before Germany is essentially one of 

defence, not conquest .... 117-120 

5. Alone against the world 120-121 



SUMMARIES 333: 

VI. REAL CAUSES 

Preliminary 

Of Ostensible and Real Causes, with a word on Actual 
Aims, 125-127 ; Wars of Lust and through Enmity, 127-. 
129; This War one of Enmity, 129-131. 

1. Trial of Strength 

. The primitive which of us two is the stronger? Spirit 
of the actual fighters, etc., 131-133; Germany or Britain? 
133-134; World supremacy? For the primitive, condi- 
tions of combat must be fair, present are not, 135-136; 
Germany's increasing power: If by Britain eyed with jeal- 
ousy. War inevitable, 137; Fact of increase, 137-138; 
Charges of Aggression: Their worthlessness, 138-141; 
Present anti- Germanism repeats Past, 142-144; British 
humour toward German, 144-146; German toward Brit- 
ain, 146-147; ditto, ditto, Kaiser and British, 147-148; 
German and British desires for peace, views of inevitability 
of war and preparations for it, 148-152 ; British Ignorance 
of Germany: Political Ignorance, past and present, 152-155 ; 
Our Writers first in Blame, Literature as eye. Our Writers : 
their salute of Teneriffe a sidle by. What they have taught 
of Germany, But what have they known ? 155-158 ; British 
sympathy with France in 1870, Acme of Trial by Strength, 
158 ; No simple, primitive, ever possible, only this very com- 
pound, 158-159. 

la. Militarism 

Militarism, 159 ; Conquering Hordes, Likenings of Kaiser 
to Napoleon, 160 ; Genuine Military Powers, 160-162 ; Ger- 



334 SUMMARIES 

many's army a necessity of existence to her, and nobly 
used hitherto, 162-163; Military Power as a menace to 
Democracy, Its need to whoever should cope with Democ- 
racy, Church Militant, 163-166; Anarchies incurable by 
force but force used in their cure. Neutralising antidotes, 
166 ; Word on alleged German Atrocities, 166-170 ; Defini- 
tion of the *' Ism, " 170. 

2. Democracy Versus Autocracy 

Is the war a struggle for supremacy between these? 171 ; 
British notions of Autocracy, 171-172 ; Ditto of Democracy, 
Fixed Ideas, 172-175; Meaning of Autocracy in human 
speech: its preferability sans all fanaticisms for it, 175- 
176; Ditto of Democracy, Officers to be chosen from all 
ranks, 176-177; Carlyle on Democracy and Autocracy, 
Word on Sir E. T. Cook again, 177-179; Modem Democ- 
racy born of revolt against Bankrupt Imposture: there 
true. As assertive faith, a madness and diabolism, The two 
halves of World-drama, German race to be Protagonist in 
second, harder half, 180-182; Sovereignty, actual and 
veracious, exists in Germany alone. What is its character? 
182-183. 

2a. German Kaiser: British King 

Sovereignty which can live and grow must be able to 
cope with Democracy, 183-184; Kaiser sole real amid the 
nominal, 184^186; rage at him because real. Democracy's 
vicious forbiddal of sovereignty. Private antipathies of 
nominal to real, 186-188 ; of the Hohenzollern Race : Pub- 
lic 's conduct to authors. Lying prophet's conception of 
the HohenzoUerns, 188-189 ; Long duration of Race. Noth- 
ing magical has gathered round it. Never lived in a vaia 



SUMMARIES 33S 

show. Stable growth. Constantly equal to present time. 
Simplicity and veracity. Not forgotten they are stewards, 
or Whose, 189-191 ; Of Kaiser Wilhelm II : Have not at- 
tempted to take his measures. Own conception still in 
gfrowth, 192; Child-portrait of him. Author first heard 
of him when a boy at school; later, more distinct notions 
and experiences, 193-196; Raised up by Providence for 
something great? 196-197; Personal qualities: Equipment 
. . . Religion, 197-201; Difficulties of his post, 201-203; 
British opposition to him, 203-204; Still fronting manlike 
with his People, 204-205; German loyalty to Kaiser, 
Kaiser-ship, 205-206; German and British Kaiser-a-King- 
ships. Constitutional Monarchy, 206-207; Is the lot of a 
British King easy? Virtues needed in a British King? 
The quality which is needed : Discretion, 207-210 ; The Un- 
offending Majesty of Britain, 210-211 ; What his Discretion 
saves him from, 211-213; Necessity of Sovereignty in a 
Nation, 213-215; Divine subordination and world's opposi- 
tion to it, 215-218 ; Real and Mock Kings, Their Peers and 
their Artists, etc., 218-220; King: President. American 
President, 220-221 ; All importance of the Way to Power, 
221-224. 



2b. The Liberal Ministry 

Author belongs to no Party. Comparisons of Liberal 
and Tory, 224r-227; The Liberal Ministry: Faculty with- 
out True Faith, 227-230 ; Asquith, 230-234 ; Lloyd-George, 
234-235; Churchill, 235; Sir E. Grey, 236-238; Emer- 
gence as United Ministry: Asquith Chief, 238-240; Do- 
mestic Campaigns, 240-241 ; Opposition they met, 241-242 ; 
Raised up by Providence ? and for what ? 242 ; They were 
Causers of the War, 242-247 ; Incidental remarks r& con- 
duct in War: Energetic prosecution of it. Would stop at 



336 SUMMARIES 

nothing in a pinch. Free Parliament's drift toward a 
Convention of Tyranny. Censorship, 247-250; Practice 
of flouting other countries' Governments. Superstition, 
250-252; How these Men rose to Power. Greatest of 
Tragedies, this, of Worthy Turning to folly and crime, 
252-254. 

2c. Carlyle 

Democracy issue in War, 254; The British not now act- 
ing in Ignorance but in Defiance, 255-258; Significance 
of Carlyle 's having written so much upon Germany, 258- 
262. 



3. Mendacity Versus Veracity 

British Religion: Elsewhere written of. Author's con- 
fession of faith, Carlyle 's ditto, 262-265; British Religion 
beggars description. A fountain of death. Cabinet Min- 
isters' primary perversion, 265-268; Misreading of Car- 
lyle, 268; Mendacity: Defined. British saturation with, 
268-271; Veracity: Defined. Are the Germans veracious? 
271-273; German Literature of Goethe's epoch, 273-275; 
Receptions Goethe and Carlyle met, 275-278; Vital ques- 
tion for Germany: How is it with her religious faith? 
German veracity. No nation of Saints, 278-282 ; Veracity : 
Mendacity: The eternal quarrel. Brito-German arbitra- 
ment, 282-283. 

3a. Common Guilt of People 

How completely guilt is shared by British People with 
their government. Always is, but especially so here, 283- 
288; Where this is true the Punishment wiU fall on the 



SUMMAEIES 337 

People, 288-290; New Age not to be of. Butter, harder 
than Steel, 290-295. 

3b. Dubieties and Certainties 

In the main, Certainty in regard to British, Dubiety in 
regard to German; how and why, 295-299. 

vn. ISSUES 

Issue of War in Sense of Who Wins 

British confidence of winning, 303-307; Other Confi- 
dences, 307-309; Effect of a Consensus in rendering the 
Better comparatively ineffectual, 309-312; Territorial 
changes hoped for by British, etc. Alsace-Lorraine. Po- 
land, 312-313; Belgium, 313-315; German Aggression! 
And the egging on others to wars of conquest. Face on it, 
315-316; World's copy of British Mendacity, 316; Who 
was to blame for the War? 316-318; Salvo jure tertii, 318; 
The things Britain cherishes. Issues she desires, 319-320, 

Things at Issue in the War 

Brito-German Arbitrament, 320-322; Democracy, 323- 
325; Mendacity versus Veracity, 325. 

The Effect of War's Results Upon the Things at Issue 

With Germany victorious. With a draw. With com- 
bination successful, 325-327 ; Last word, 327. 



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